The course analyzes Shakespeare's Hamlet in depth and looks at two plays that anticipate it in many of its themes: Thomas Kyd's box-office success The Spanish Tragedy and Shakespeare's early play Titus Andronicus. The course aims at understanding the finer details of one of the most famous works in European literature. It will also look at how some of the main themes are dealt with in a series of post-1945 Hamlet-movies.

The course aims at providing students with a firm understanding of the literary scene of the late 1580s and early 1590s - it wishes to illustrate in particular how the idea of "revenge" was conveyed by three popular plays of the period. It also wants to show students how to study a selected literary trope. During the course students will acquire the necessary linguistic and critical tools to analyze works of literature, discuss literary works using the correct terminology, and be encouraged to make autonomous judgments. 

1 - Senecan tragedy

2 - Thomas Kyd, The Spanish Tragedy

3 - William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus

4 - William Shakespeare, Hamlet

5 - Excerpts from the major Hamlet-movies since 1945

16 CFU in English Literature in previous BA course

- Knowledge and understanding: students will acquire a good understanding of the essential social-historical and social-cultural factors underpinning the period of study, and will be able to approach English literary studies with the appropriate critical instruments and methods.  

- Applying knowledge and understanding: students will have the linguistic, cultural and critical abilities to describe and analyse English Literature.

- Making judgements: students will acquire the critical ability to judge and evaluate literary texts and will be able to express autonomous opinions on social-literary subjects of different historical periods. 

- Communication skills: students will be trained to have an open and unprejudiced attitude to different realities and periods and express themselves in appropriate language.

- Learning skills: students will possess the necessary methodological skills, the critical abilities, bibliographical knowledge and research skills to continue their studies in the field.

The teaching material prepared by the lecturer in addition to recommended textbooks (such as for instance slides, lecture notes, exercises, bibliography) and communications from the lecturer specific to the course can be found inside the Moodle platform › blended.uniurb.it

Students are invited to visit my blog   http://jmiklaver.wordpress.com for further study materials. The course will be held in English.

Teaching

Lectures. During classes students will be asked to present their own reading of some scenes (these activities will be graded and are part of the final mark).

Course books

Shakespeare W., Hamlet (Arden Shakespeare, Third Series), eds. Ann Thompson &, Neil Taylor.

Kyd T., The Spanish Tragedy (any edition)

Shakespeare, W., Titus Andronicus (any edition)

(The "Hamlet Works" project  offers an enormous amount of material to study Shakespeare's Hamlet)

Assessment

written exam (in English)

Disability and Specific Learning Disorders (SLD)

Students who have registered their disability certification or SLD certification with the Inclusion and Right to Study Office can request to use conceptual maps (for keywords) during exams.

To this end, it is necessary to send the maps, two weeks before the exam date, to the course instructor, who will verify their compliance with the university guidelines and may request modifications.

Teaching

self study: non-attending students are expected to check out historical and cultural contexts, as well as detailed textual analyses, on the internet. They are also invited to visit my blog  http://jmiklaver.wordpress.com for further study materials. Recommended critical editions of the plays: The Spanish Tragedy (Arden Early Modern Drama), eds. Clara Calvo & Jesus Tronch; Titus Andronicus (Arden Shakespeare: Third Series), ed. Jonathan Bate; Hamlet (Arden Shakespeare, Third Series), eds. Ann Thompson &, Neil Taylor.

Course books

Shakespeare W., Hamlet (Arden Shakespeare, Third Series), eds. Ann Thompson &, Neil Taylor.

Kyd T., The Spanish Tragedy (any edition)

Shakespeare, W., Titus Andronicus (any edition)

(The "Hamlet Works" project  offers an enormous amount of material to study Shakespeare'sHamlet)

Assessment

written exam (in English); the programme above is valid only till January/February 2017.

Disability and Specific Learning Disorders (SLD)

Students who have registered their disability certification or SLD certification with the Inclusion and Right to Study Office can request to use conceptual maps (for keywords) during exams.

To this end, it is necessary to send the maps, two weeks before the exam date, to the course instructor, who will verify their compliance with the university guidelines and may request modifications.