366C (Summer 2015)

Reading List

A Midsummer Night’s Dream
The Merchant of Venice
Love’s Labour’s Lost
The Merry Wives of Windsor
Henry VIII (All is True)
The Winter’s Tale

To Buy or Not to Buy?

If you’ve been to the Bookstore’s website, you’ll have discovered that there are no required texts for this class. You may work from any recent scholarly edition (ISE/Broadview, ISE online, Norton, Arden, Bevington). Note that all the plays are available from the Internet Shakespeare Editions), along with ample supporting resources. You may bring a laptop, tablet, or tablet-phone to class if you are reading from an ISE edition. As a UVic student, you have access to all the ISE’s subscription-only features, including a built-in note-taking space.

To Watch or Not to Watch?

Every year, at least one student asks me before the term if I would recommend some film versions. I do not recommend watching film versions before reading the play at least once. Why not? Directors cut, rearrange, and even add material to the text. A film is a text in its own right; in fact, you’ll find that literary critics analyze cinematic adaptations of Shakespeare in the best journals in our field (Shakespeare Bulletin and Shakespeare Quarterly, for example). But before you can study an adaptation, you need to know what’s being adapted.

However, if your learning style is aural, you might like to read the plays while listening to audio recordings, which are widely available through the GVPL or the UVic Library (Music and Media). You might also like to watch some of the downloadable videos of live performance. I recommend the Globe Player, where you’ll be able to watch productions from Shakespeare’s Globe in London.

Quizzes and Final Exam

There will be a reading quiz on each play (marked with *). The final exam will be on June 25 (the final class period).

Schedule at a Glance

This schedule is provisional and subject to change without notice before the first class and change with notice after the first class.

Class 1. May 12. MND*
Class 2. May 14. MND
Class 3. May 19. MV*
Class 4. May 21. MV
Class 5. May 26. LLL*
Class 6. May 28. LLL
Class 7. June 2. MWW*
Class 8. June 4. MWW
Class 9. June 9. H8*
Class 10. June 11. H8
Class 11. June 16. WT*
Class 12. June 18. Review
Class 13. June 23. WT (with Dr. Best)
Class 14. June 25. Final Exam