SoSe 22: PS-Surveying English Literatures: Shakespeare's <i>The Tempest</i>
Peter Löffelbein
Comments
Often considered ‘the Bard’s last play’, The Tempest has long fascinated theatre audiences, readers and literary scholars alike. The text reimagines the tropes of diverse literary traditions in the light of the great challenges of its day – Early Modern political struggles, the epistemological shifts advancing the so-called scientific revolution, the ‘newly discovered’ lands and peoples of the Americas – in a way that has allowed it to become an established point of reference for modern literature and discourse.
This course aims at familiarising students with the study of this Early Modern text, its sources, and its contexts. Together, we will explore the ways in which dramatists and critics have interpreted it since its inception in the early 17th century. We will discuss select film adaptations, stage productions, and literary assessments, from Restoration era rewritings to recent feminist, postcolonialist and ecocritical approaches.
Required edition: William Shakespeare: The Tempest, ed. Virginia Mason Vaughan and Alden T. Vaughan (Arden Third Series). London 2007 [1999].
close13 Class schedule
Regular appointments