Duration
30h Th
Number of credits
Lecturer
Language(s) of instruction
English language
Organisation and examination
Teaching in the first semester, review in January
Schedule
Units courses prerequisite and corequisite
Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program
Learning unit contents
The course, subtitled this year "Shakespeare and the Middle Ages", will urge a reconsideration of well-established critical clichés about this author, as well as a rethinking of the generative relationship between two important phases of the literary past, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Shakespeare has been traditionally regarded as an author of the Renaissance, and until recently it would have been unthinkable to associate him with the culture of the Middle Ages - the only segment of his production identified as somehow medieval in theme being the history plays. Any other medieval elements in his work were widely considered as random unimportant survivals in a writer felt to be marking the emergence of the modern world, and to be illustrating all those ways of being that characterize our modern selves. As against this line of thinking, we shall examine the possibility that he may be a writer who was deeply embedded in the Middle Ages, and who inherited many of his shaping ideas and assumptions - about everything from language through culture and religion to stagecraft - from the medieval past. This will be attempted in the light of a selection of representative comedies and tragedies.
Learning outcomes of the learning unit
The students are expected to develop with such life-essential competences as a familiarity with medieval literary culture, with Renaissance literary culture, with Shakespeare's work and sources, and with the particular idiom known as Elizabethan English.
Prerequisite knowledge and skills
A dim remembrance of the first-year course on the history of English literature may come in handy but is not indispensable.
Planned learning activities and teaching methods
Heuristic seminars in class or online.
Mode of delivery (face to face, distance learning, hybrid learning)
It is hoped that the seminars can be held face-to-face, though obviously this is bound to depend on other-than-pedagogic factors.
Organisational adjustments related to the current health context
Recommended or required readings
We shall discuss three plays by Shakespeare:
Measure for Measure
Troilus and Cressida
Pericles.
Assessment methods and criteria
Below you will find information on the evaluation methods planned for in-person and remote exams as well as those planned for hybrid sessions. Depending on how the health crisis evolves, the chosen method will be communicated to you no later than one month before the start of the exam session.
In all likelihood assessment will take the form of an oral examination in which the students will be asked to confirm their receptivity to the themes addressed in class and to test this against a body of critical (secondary) literature devoted to the selected plays.
Work placement(s)
Organizational remarks
The course will be organized in the first term. The exact schedule will be determined in consultation with the students wishing to enlist.
Contacts
Please contact Marc Delrez for any query concerning the course: marc.delrez@uliege.be
As indicated above, the schedule will be determined in consultation with the students wishing to enlist. It is hoped that a first get-together can be organized in the first week of term (around 21 September 2020).