Course Outline

Unit I: 

Introducing Shakespeare-Growth and development of Shakespeare’s mind and art-Elizabethan theatre – Introducing Shakespearean Comedy and its features-Shakespearean tragedy and its features-sources of Shakespeare-Types of Shakespearean plays.

Unit II:

The Merchant of Venice [Detailed].

Unit III:

Hamlet [Detailed].

Unit IV:

Antony and Cleopatra [Non-detailed.

Unit V:

Coriolanus [Non-detailed].

To introduce the students to an awareness about the dramatic art of Shakespeare; to expose them to the craft and the magic of Shakespeare’s style and the universality and the eternal variety of his themes; to re-read Shakespeare in the light of modern critical perspectives.

1. The Merchant of Venice.
2. Hamlet.
3. Antony and Cleopatra.
4. Coriolanus.

Students are advised to refer to any standard modern editions of the above texts.

1. Kenneth Muir. Shakespeare: The Comedies, A Collection of Critical Essays.
2. Charlton H B. Shakespearean Comedy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,2010.
3. Tillyard, E. M.W. Shakespeare’s Last Plays. Michigan: The Athlone Press, 1991.
4. Bloom, Harold. Modern Critical Interpretations. Broomall: Chelsea Publishers, 2004.
5. Bradley, A.C. Shakespearean Tragedy. Middlesex: Echo library, 2007.
6. Dowden, Edward. Shakespeare :A Critical Study of his Mind and Art. New Delhi: Atlantic, 2003.
7. Wilson R.F. Landmark of Shakespeare Criticism. California: University of Califomia,1979.
8. Milford, H. Shakespeare Criticism: An Essay InSynthesis.London: Oxford University Press, 1938.
9. Wells, Stanley and Lena Cowen Orlin. Eds. Shakespeare: An Oxford Guide. OUP, 2007.