Shakespeare in Ireland

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

Ireland’s relationship to Shakespeare has long been troubled by the island’s thorny history with Britain. The political complications of Irish attitudes towards Shakespeare are perhaps best encapsulated in the words of W.B. Yeats: ‘I owe my soul to Shakespeare […] and to the English language in which I think, speak, and write, that everything I love has come to me through English; my hatred tortures me with love, my love with hate’. This course will ask students to unpick this long and complex relationship between the Irish and Shakespeare with an interdisciplinary approach which develops their skills in close reading, performance studies and historical analysis. Students will learn how to use Shakespeare as a lens through which to understand the cultural and political forces which shaped, and shape, Ireland. Each week of the course asks students to read Shakespeare, in his various forms, against the backdrop of Ireland’s evolving national and cultural politics, giving them a strong grounding in the history of the island between the Early Modern period and the present.