Undergraduate Course: Shakespeare's Women (LLLG07109)
Course Outline
| School | Centre for Open Learning |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 7 (Year 1 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 10 |
ECTS Credits | 5 |
| Summary | An exploration of the great variety of women's roles in Shakespeare's plays, exploring the challenges facing the women in The Taming of the Shrew, Hamlet, As You Like It, Macbeth, and Othello. |
| Course description |
Wk 1: Binary female opposites in Shakespeare's Henry VI pt 1 (c.1592): Queen Margaret, a powerful French queen in England; and Joan of Arc, a religiously sanctified female leader in France
Wk 2: Empowered, disempowered, cursing and lamenting queens in Richard III (1593)
Wk 3: Struggling female voices in Richard II (1596) - Isabella, the Duchess of York, Hotspur's wife
Wk 4: The noble Roman matron: Portia and Calpurnia in Julius Caesar (1599)
Wks 5&6: 'Frailty thy name is woman': Gertrude and other weak queens in Hamlet (1600)
Wks 7&8: Shakespeare's greatest female ruler, Cleopatra (Antony and Cleopatra, 1606)
Wks 9&10: The great redemptive queens in the Last Plays: Thaisa in Pericles (1608) and Hermione in The Winter¿s Tale (1610)
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Understand the historical context of attitudes towards women in the period
- Appreciate the complex psychology of gender relationships in the plays
- Describe the constraints on women in Shakespeare¿s world and on the stage
- Interpret the gender values encoded within modern productions of Shakespeare.
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Reading List
Essential:
The course plays to be studied in any of the following editions: Norton, Arden, New Cambridge, Oxford.
Recommended:
Dusinberre, Juliet. Shakespeare and the Nature of Women. London: Macmillan, 1975.
Woodbridge, Linda. Women and the English Renaissance. Brighton: Harvester, 1984. |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Confidence in discussing texts
Ability to articulate knowledge and arguments coherently
Ability to assess secondary materials |
| Keywords | Shakespeare,women |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Ms Rachael King
Tel:
Email: Rachael.King@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Ms Kameliya Skerleva
Tel: (0131 6)51 1855
Email: Kameliya.Skerleva@ed.ac.uk |
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