Shakespeare and the Classics

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

This course investigates Shakespeare’s lifelong engagement with the literatures and cultures of ancient Greece and Rome. We will give careful attention to six plays – Titus Andronicus, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Merchant of Venice, Coriolanus, and Cymbeline – as well as considering the larger role of classical antiquity in Shakespeare’s development and achievement as a poet and dramatist. How did Shakespeare adapt his sources to explore the most urgent social, political, and aesthetic questions of his own era? The class includes film screenings, tickets to a live performance of Merchant of Venice at the Shakespeare Theater Company, and a visit to the Georgetown Rare Books Collection.