Shakespeare and his Afterlives

This course runs across two terms.

In Michaelmas, students study plays by Shakespeare; in Hilary, students will study responses to these same plays from the Eighteenth Century until the present day. These include modernist and Romantic poems and plays, postcolonial adaptions, and film versions.

Shakespeare’s central position in the canon is due not only to his works but also to the ways in which those works have provoked others: composers, poets, novelists, and film-makers have all borrowed from and rewritten Shakespeare’s plays in countless ways.

This year-long focus upon a single author and the rich range of artistic responses to that author will therefore cause students to think about genre theory, adaptation, and intertextuality.