- Teacher: Georgia Fulton
This seminar uses three of Shakespeare's late plays ('The Winter's Tale', 'Pericles' and 'Cymbeline') as a way of investigating the complexity of Shakespeare's use of tragicomedy. To thoroughly assess Shakespeare's manipulation of tragicomic features we will first consider a selection of texts setting out various poetic theories. The popularisation of poetics under Queen Elizabeth lays the groundwork for Shakespeare to play with the hybrid genre of tragicomedy. We will read extracts from Philip Sidney, George Puttenham, George Gascoigne, and Giovanni Antonio Viperano. In particular, we will look at themes of morality, classical poetics and spirituality. Having established the basics of Elizabethan poetic theory in relation to tragicomedy, we will examine the structures of 'The Winter's Tale', 'Cymbeline' and 'Pericles' to pinpoint how Shakespeare's use of tragicomic features affects our understanding of the plays.
Texts: 'The Winter's Tale', The Arden Shakespeare, ed. John Pitcher, ISBN 9781903436356. 'Cymbeline', The Arden Shakespeare, ed. Valerie Wayne, ISBN: 9781904271307. 'Pericles', ed. Suzanne Gossett, ISBN: 9781903436851. Extracts from poetic theory tracts will be provided on Moodle