In this MA course we will think about issues of representation on the basis of Shakespeare’s comedy Twelfth Night.
While critics usually focus on issues of gender and sex when discussing
the play, we will investigate the way that the play challenges notions
of representation in general. In what way does a character like the
melancholic Duke Orsino represent a courtly lover, for example? What
does the plot revolving around mistaken identities tell us about the
idea that actors [and in our time: actresses] on stage represent
characters?
If you
sign up for this course, be prepared to engage with the play as
performance art, i.e. learn lines by heart and act parts. You should
also be curious to engage with past and current scholarship. Please read
Robert Weimann’s “Shakespeare (De)Canonized: Conflicting Uses of
‘Authority’ and ‘Representation’. New Literary History 20, 1 (1988): 65-81, before coming to the first session.
Please do purchase a copy of the play in the following edition, again before coming to the first session: William Shakespeare. Twelfth Night Ed. Keir Elam (The Arden Shakespeare. Third Series) London: Bloomsbury, 2009. [ISBN: 978-1903436998] Please note: No other edition will do!
This is a digital detox course; please refrain from using digital devices during our weekly sessions.
The SL for this class is active participation; the PL is an oral exam (MAP).
- Dozent/in: Felix Sprang