Week 5 Syllabus: April 22
BRING ON WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE! The iconic tragedy, Romeo & Juliet, features everything you would want in romantic-death-comedy: teenage romance, street-fighting with swords, out-of-control family parties and drunken exploits, a marriage, a court case, even illegal drug use and murder. And that doesn’t even include the dual suicide which ends the play! We will begin finding out more about William Shakespeare’s youth and his Elizabethan England, and will prime-the-pump for our play-reading by re-re-re-reading the Act 1 prologue. Remember to bring your script! Annotations will be worth DOUBLE Homer’s Odyssey.
MONDAY, April 22
Documentary on the life of William Shakespeare. Who was he? Where did he grow up, and what did he do that eventually led to him becoming the world’s most famous playwright in English? How did his life in England influence his work?
Ending class by reading and annotating the prologue to Act 1, a Shakespearian sonnet (duh!)
HW: If you haven’t finished your annotated bibliography on your mythic figure do so. Light homework because of Passover.
WEDNESDAY, April 24
The first half of class we will practice performing the prologue to Act 1.
The second half, we will resume “In Search of William Shakespeare,” this part focusing on William’s 20s, about which we know little for certain.
HW: Read act one. While reading, use the audio of the play on Folger’s excellent web site. We meet Romeo, and he’s obsessed with Rosaline. His friends try to break him out of his sappy-romantic funk by bringing him to a party—but he meets (and instantly falls in love with) Juliet. The feeling is mutual!
Annotate for conflicting imagery: love/hate, hot/cold, day/night, sin/piety, sun/moon. It’s all there, and it all symbolizes something.