The Islamic University of Gaza First Semester 2012/2013 Faculty of Arts

English Department Subject: Elizabethan Lit.

Course Outline

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Elizabethan Literature

Course Description:

This course aims to encourages students to encounter the works of Shakespeare, Marlowe and their contemporaries in relation to Elizabethan culture and the wider literary traditions of renaissance drama. It emphasizes critical reading and analysis of selected drama for Shakespeare and Marlowe. The texts that are going to be studied reflect the preoccupations of both sixteenth century writers and their audience. This course focuses on several literary contexts that positively highlight the so called golden age of drama.

Course Objectives:

  1. Students will gain an in-depth knowledge of the Elizabethan era including a variety of writers and genres unique to this period.
  2. Students will examine the Elizabethan Age/literature, and develop an understanding of the contribution of Christopher Marlow and William Shakespeare to English Literature .
  3. Students will gain an appreciation not only of the aesthetics of the writers and works studied, but also of the cultural contexts within which the writers operated and to which they reacted.
  4. Students will speak clearly and effectively in standard English.
  5. Students will logically and persuasively state and support orally their points of view or findings.
  6. Students will use critical thinking skills to demonstrate understanding of different traditions, methods, and approaches within human experience.

7.  Students will develop their creative written ability by contextualizing their ideas dramatically.

Required Texts:

1- Introduction to The Elizabethan Age and literature.

2- William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.

3- Christopher Marlowe's Dr. Faustus.

Course Topics:

Week one and Two: Introduction to the Elizabethan Age and Drama as a literary genre in the Elizabethan era.

From Week Three to Week Eleven: The Merchant of Venice .

From Week Twelve to the end of the semester: Dr. Faustus .

Grading Criteria:

15 Marks Presentation

15 Marks Assignments, attendance and quizzes

20 Marks Mid-Term exam

50 Marks Final Exam

Some Elizabethan Writers and their works:

Poetry:

The Italian poet Tasso: "Jerusalem delivered," Elizabethan translation by Edward Fairfax.

Sir Thomas Wyatt: “Whoso List to Hunt”

Christopher Marlowe: “The Passionate Shepherd to his Love”

Sir Walter Raleigh: “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd”

William Shakespeare's Sonnets: 18,29,30,73,116,130,55,106,104.

Edmund Spenser: Faerie Queen (Book I, Canto I from Norton Anthology)

Wyatt: “The Long love That in My Thought Doth Harbor”

Howard: “Love That Doth Reign and Live Within My Thought”,

Sidney: Sonnets1, 31 from Astrophel and Stella

Drama:

Shakespeare: Comedies

·  The Tempest

·  The Two Gentlemen of Verona

·  The Merry Wives of Windsor

·  Measure for Measure

·  The Comedy of Errors

·  Much Ado About Nothing

·  Love's Labour's Lost

·  A Midsummer Night's Dream

·  The Merchant of Venice

·  As You Like It

·  The Taming of the Shrew

·  All's Well That Ends Well

·  Twelfth Night

·  The Winter's Tale

Histories

·  King John

·  Richard II

·  Henry IV, Part 1

·  Henry IV, Part 2

·  Henry V

·  Henry VI, Part 1

·  Henry VI, Part 2

·  Henry VI, Part 3

·  Richard III

·  Henry VIII

Tragedies

·  Troilus and Cressida

·  Coriolanus

·  Titus Andronicus

·  Romeo and Juliet

·  Timon of Athens

·  Julius Caesar

·  Macbeth

·  Hamlet

·  King Lear

·  Othello

·  Antony and Cleopatra

·  Cymbeline

Christopher Marlowe: The Jew of Malta

Ben Johnson: Every Man in His Humour, Every Man out of his Humour, Volpone

Thomas Kyd: The Spanish Tragedy

John Webster: The Duchess of Malfi

Dr Mahmoud Baroud

Good Luck