The  University  of  Texas  at  Dallas

Graduate Program in the Humanities

 

HUHI 7386                                                               Spring  2004                                                                   W  7:00-9:45

   Sec. 501    Call = 13964                                                                                                                                          Jo 3.114

 

 

Professor Gerald Soliday                                                                                                              Office:  Jonsson  4.202

       Hours:    W and R  6:00-7:00 and by appointment:                                                                             972-883-2760

       E-mail:  soliday@utdallas.edu                                                                 Internet:  http://www.utdallas.edu/~soliday

 

 

 

 

HUHI 7386:                                                                                                                     The Artist and Writer in Society:

 

 

 

Shakespeare  &  the Woman Question

 

 

       Like "Reading Shakespeare Historically" last spring, this course examines the society and culture of late Tudor and early Stuart England as part of the current scholarly attempt to situate the playwright and his works concretely in time and place.  In this particular case, however, the seminar focuses on social relations and cultural norms related to the early modern "woman question," the controversy over gender roles and domestic relations that was particularly intense from the 1590s to the 1620s.  The major goal is to address Shakespeare's plays, especially their female characters, as possible commentaries on issues concerning the "nature of women."

 

After studying some pamphlets in the controversy itself as well as some recent research on women and gender relations in the period, we will emphasize group reading and interpretation of several plays.  With each drama we will also examine short examples of different critical approaches, particularly those that represent contrasting views of Shakespeare's works as supportive or subversive of traditional norms and values.

 

 

Course requirements include active participation in seminar discussions, an oral report on an important book or scholarly debate, as well as a final paper of roughly twenty pages.  Students may choose writing projects that match their own interests or places in the graduate program:  a research paper suitable for revision in an M.A. portfolio, a pedagogical or scholarly report suitable as a draft for an M.A.T. casebook essay, or a critical review helpful for preparing doctoral exam fields.

 

All written work and class discussion for this course is in gender-neutral, nonsexist language and rhetorical constructions.  Such practice is part of a classroom situation according full respect and opportunity to all participants by all others.

 

Written work is submitted in paper or "hard" copy, without cover pages or special folders.  Simply put your name and course identification at the top of the first page and staple the upper left corner.  Papers are always paginated (usually at the bottom and center of each page after the first), double-spaced, and presented in clear 10- to 12-point type.

 

Parenthetical annotation is now strongly recommended, though any form of annotation (foot- or endnotes) and bibliography (list of works cited or of works consulted) is acceptable for this course, provided that you use it correctly and consistently. 

 

Probably most appropriate for your work in the arts and humanities are standard style guides like the MLA Handbook (6th ed., 2003) or Kate L. Turabian’s Manual for Writers (6th ed., 1996).  The Turabian manual is really a short version of The Chicago Manual of Style (15th ed., 2003), often the preferred guide for historians.  Another useful handbook is Diana Hacker, Research and Documentation in the Electronic Age (3rd ed., 2002).

 

At the same time, Hacker's Rules for Writers (5th ed., 2003) summarizes MLA stylistic conventions, outlines current grammatical practices and mechanical presentation, and offers helpful guidelines for researching and writing papers.  You may find it especially useful for your work in the course this semester.  Any graduate student who has not already read  William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White, The Elements of Style (4th ed.; Boston, 2000), should do so immediately.

 

I should also mention that the eleventh edition of Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary appeared this past summer and now becomes the standard for university work.

 

Most required readings as well as some recommended items for the course are on reserve in the McDermott Library.  Paperback books used extensively are also for sale, if you wish to purchase them, both in the University Bookstore and at Off-Campus Books.  Rather than being on the library’s reserve shelf, however, shorter readings marked with an asterisk (*) are available online through the copy of this syllabus on my Internet Web site.  Please note that those materials are under copyright, you must always cite them properly, and you must have a password to gain access to them.

 

Please also note that, although I do not anticipate them, there may be some changes in the following schedule.  If they occur, I will announce them in class and post them on the syllabus at my Web site on the Internet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SCHEDULE  OF  CLASS  MEETINGS  &  ASSIGNMENTS

 

 

 

14 Jan     Introduction to the Course

 

 

21 Jan     The Bard from Stratford:  Player, Playwright, Theatrical Entrepreneur

 

                      Discussion of Peter Thomson, Shakespeare’s Professional Career

 

Recommended:  Samuel Schoenbaum, William Shakespeare:  A Compact  Documentary Life

                      Jonathan Bate, The Genius of Shakespeare

                      Gary Taylor, Reinventing Shakespeare

 

 

 

28 Jan     London Theater  &  Its Audiences

 

                 Discussion of Andrew Gurr, Playgoing in Shakespeare’s London (2nd  ed.)

 

                      Recommended:  Andrew Gurr, The Shakespearean Stage 1574-1642 (3rd ed.)

 

 

 

  4 Feb    Women's Life Experiences:  A Social History

 

Discussion of Sara Mendelson and Patricia Crawford, Women in Early Modern England

 

                      Report on Merry Wiesner, Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe  (2nd ed.) [Laura Kennon]

 

Recommended:  Keith Wrightson, English Society 1580-1680, esp. chs. 3 and 4

                      Amy Erikson, Women and Property in Early Modern England

 

 

11 Feb     Patriarchies:  The Construction of Early Modern Gender

 

Discussion of Anthony Fletcher, Gender, Sex & Subordination in England 1500-1800, xv-279 and 401-413

 

Recommended:  Fletcher, 283-400

 

Report on Margaret Sommerville, Sex & Subjection: Attitudes to Women in Early Modern Society  [Rosarita Lubag]

 

Report on Stephen Orgel, Impersonations: The Performance of Gender in Shakespeare’s England  [Megan Moser]

 

                      Report on Gail Kern Paster, The Body Embarrassed: Drama and the Disciplines of Shame in Early Modern England

                      [Amanda Besch]

 

 

18 Feb           [ No Session ]

 

 

25 Feb    Diatribes & Panegyrics:  The Debate about Womankind

 

Discussion of Half Humankind  Contexts and Texts of the Controversy about Women in England,

1540-1640, ed. K. Henderson and B. McManus

 

                      Report on Daughters, Wives & Widows  Writings by Men about Women and Marriage in England,

   1500-1640, ed. Joan Larsen Klein  [Jessica Warrior]

 

Report on Swetnam the Woman-Hater: The Controversy and the Play, ed. Coryl Crandall  [Leah Ferraro-Erdem]

 

Recommended: 

Linda Woodbridge, Women and the English Renaissance: Literature and the Nature of Womankind 1540-1640

 

 

 

  3 Mar    Interpretive Strategies with Shakespearean Texts

 

Discussion of *Stephen Greenblatt, "The Dream of the Master Text," The Norton Shakespeare, ed. S. Greenblatt et al. (NY & London, 1997), 65-76, *J. Leeds Barroll, “Thinking About Shakespeare’s Thoughts,” William Shakespeare: His World, His Work, His Influence, ed. John F. Andrews (NY, 1985), 291-308, and *Richard Levin, “The Relation of External Evidence to the Allegorical and Thematic Interpretation of Shakespeare,” Shakespeare Studies 13 (1980):1-29

 

              The New Historicism

 

Discussion of *Jean Howard, “The New Historicism in Renaissance Studies,” Renaissance Historicism, ed. Arthur F. Kinney and Dan S. Collins (Amherst, (1987): 3-33,and Louis Montrose, The Purpose of Playing: Shakespeare and the Cultural Politics of the Elizabethan Theatre, xi-105

 

Recommended:  Leeds Barroll, “A New History for Shakespeare and His Time,” Shakespeare Quarterly 39 (1988): 441-464

 

Report on Juliet Dusinberre, Shakespeare and the Nature of Women  (2nd ed.)  [Tricia Cross]

 

 

10 Mar               [Spring Break]

 

 

17 Mar    The Cultural Politics of A Midsummer Night’s Dream

 

                      Discussion of A Midsummer Night's Dream  (1594-96), ed. Gail Kern Paster and Skiles Howard, 1-85,

and of Montrose, 109-211

 

                      MND on Film:  Reinhardt (1935), Hall (1968), Moshinsky (BBC, 1981)

 

Continued discussion of the Paster and Howard edition of MND, 89-324  [Discussion leader = Dayne Castle]

 

               Discussion of Research Topics and Papers

 

 

 

24 Mar     The Fight for the Breeches:  Unruly Women  &  Shrew-Taming

 

Discussion of The Taming of the Shrew  (1592), ed. Frances E. Dolan, 1-159

 

                      Viewing of scenes from The Taming of the Shrew

 

                      Report on John Fletcher, The Woman’s Prize; or, the Tamer Tamed (1611)  [Erin Kelley]

 

                      [Further discussion of Research Topics]

 

 

 

31 Mar            Discussion of the Dolan edition of Taming, 160-326, as well as *David Underdown, "The Taming of the Scold: The Enforcement of Patriarchal Authority in Early Modern England," Order and Disorder in Early Modern England, ed. A. Fletcher and J. Stevenson (Cambridge, 1985), 116-136, and *Martin Ingram, “’Scolding Women Cucked or Washed’: a Crisis in Gender Relations in Early Modern England,” Women, Crime and the Courts in Early Modern England, ed. J. Kermode and G. Walker (Chapel Hill and London, 1994), 48-80  [Discussion leader = Carie Andrews]

 

                      Report on remaining essays on Women and Crime in the Kermode and Walker collection  [Tomekia Manning]

 

Report on Diana O’Hara, Courtship and Constraint:  Rethinking the Making of Marriage in Tudor England

[Jamie Wheeler]

 

               Report on Ann J Cook, Wooing and Wedding: Shakespeare's Dramatic Distortion of the Customs of His Time

               [Janet Fairfield]

 

               Further discussion of Research Topics

 

 

 

  7 Apr     "And all is semblative a woman's part":  Gender Confusion

 

Discussion of Twelfth Night, or What You Will  (1601), ed. Bruce R. Smith, 1-111 [Discussion leader = Rita

Boudard]

 

                      Viewing of scenes from Twelfth Night

 

                      Report on Richard Burt, Unspeakable Shaxxxspears: Queer Theory and American Kiddie Culture  [Tim Kindy]

 

 

14 Apr            Discussion of  the Smith edition of TN, 183-356, as well as *Jean Howard, “Crossdressing, the Theatre, and Gender Struggle in Early Modern England,” Shakespeare Quarterly 39 (1988): 418-440 [McDermott R\reference], and *David Cressy, “Gender Trouble and Cross-Dressing in Early Modern England,” Journal of British Studies 35 (1996): 438-465 [McDermott Reference]  [Insoon Han]

 

               Further discussion of Research Topics

 

 

 

21 Apr     Discussion of Research Topics or Problems

 

 

 

28 Apr     Final Paper Due.                                                     Seminar Meeting at the Instructor's Home

               Please attach a stamped self-addressed envelope to the paper, so I may return it with comments

and your marks for the course.