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English 706 "Shakespeare and the Designs of Empire"

'Consider now, if they asked us, Will you give up your Indian Empire or your Shakespeare, you English....Really it were a grave question....we cannot do without Shakespeare....Nay, apart from spiritualities; and considering him as a real, marketable, tangibly-useful possession.  England, before long, this Isle of ours, will hold but a small fraction of the English: in America, in New Holland, east and west to the very Antipodes, there will be a Saxondom covering great spaces of the Globe. And now, what is it that can keep all these together....Here, I say, is an English King, whom no time or chance can dethrone....strongest of rallying signs; indestructible; really more valuable in that point of view than any other means of appliance....a radiant aloft over all the Nations of Englishmen, a thousand years hence.'

                                                                        Thomas Carlyle, 'The Hero as Poet' (1888) 

COURSE OUTLINE 2007 

This is a working plan only: the sequence of topics and the topics themselves may well be changed to take account of the developing interests of the class, to make space for material that seems to require more extensive treatment, or to accommodate visiting lecturers.  However it should give a broad sense of the direction things will follow, as well as allowing you to think in advance about the seminar and essay work you will undertake. 

In addition to the readings specified for some sessions (which will normally be distributed in the previous week), you should consult the reading list, and scan the files kept in the class cupboard for relevant material.  The cupboard is held in Rm. 204 on the second floor. 

SEMESTER 1 

Week 1 (26 Feb)            Introduction (1)                       

• Shakespeare Universal & Local
•  Shakespeare & Discovery
• Shakespeare & Empire
• Shakespeare & Nationalism
• Shakespeare in a Postcolonial World 

Week 2  (5 Mar) Introduction (2)

Week 3  (12 Mar) Imagining the Nation

Text: Richard II

Readings: Richard Helgerson, Forms of Nationhood, Chs.1 & 5; Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities

Week 4-5 (19, 26 March) Imagining Empire / The Power of Cartography

Texts: I & 2 Tamburlaine; Montaigne, "Of Coaches"; map scenes from Lear, 1 Henry IV

Readings: 1. (on Tamburlaine) Emily C. Bartels, "The Double Vision of the East: Imperialist Self-Construction in Marlowe's Tamburlaine, Part 1," Ren.Drama 23 (1992), 3-23; Ethel Seaton, "Marlowe's Map," Essays & Studies X (1924), 13-35; John Gillies, "Marlowe, the Timur Legend, & the Motives of Geography" (typescript handout); Garrett Sullivan, "Space, Measurement, and Stalking Tamburlaine," Renaissance Drama 28 (1997), 3-27; Crystal Bartolovich. "Putting Tamburlaine on a (Cognitive), Renaissance Drama 28 (1997), 29-72.

2. (on cartography) Philip Armstrong, "Spheres of Influence: Cartography and the Gaze in Shakespearean Tragedy and History," Shakespeare Studies  (1997), 39-70; Richard Helgerson, Forms of Nationhood, Ch. 3; John Gillies, Shakespeare and the Geography of Difference, (esp. Chs. 1-2);Tom Conley, "Pierre Boiastuau's Cosmographic Stage: Theater, Text, and Map," Renaissance Drama 23 (1992), 59-86; Samuel Edgerton, jr., `From Mental Matrix to Mappamundi to Christian Empire: The Heritage of Ptolemaic Cartography in the Renaissance,"  in David Woodward (ed.), Art and Cartography (1987); J.B. Harley, "Maps, Knowledge, and Power" in D. Cosgrove & S. Daniels (eds.), The Iconography of Landscape (Cambridge, 1988), 277-312; Michael Neill, "'The Exact Map of Discovery of Human Affairs': Shakespeare and the Plotting of History," in Putting History to the Question,pp. 373-397. 

Week 6 (2 April)  Film: ?Aguirre Wrath of God 

EASTER BREAK  (6-22 April) 

Week 7-8 (23, 30 April)  Ireland

Texts:
Edmund Spenser, A View of the Present State of Ireland; The Faerie Queene, Book 5 `The Legend of Artegall, or Justice'
Ben Jonson, The Irish Masque at Court
Sir John Davies, A Discoverie of the True Causes why Ireland was never entirely Subdued  (1612)

Readings: Brendan Bradshaw, Andrew Hadfield, & Will Maley (eds.), Representing Ireland: Literature and the Origins of Conflict (Cambridge: 1993); Michael Neill, `Broken English and Broken Irish: Nation, Language, and the Optic of Power in Shakespeare's Histories,' Shakespeare Quarterly 45 (1994), 1-32; David Cairns & Shaun Richards, Writing Ireland: Colonialism, Nationalism and Culture  (1988), esp. Chap. 1 `What ish my nation?' 

Week 9 (7 May)  Nation & Empire

Text: Henry V

Readings: David J. Baker, `"Wildehirisheman": Colonialist             Representation in Shakespeare's Henry V,' ELR 22 (1992), 37-         61; Jonathan Dollimore & Alan Sinfield, `History & Ideology: The Instance of Henry V', in John Drakakis (ed) Alternative Shakespeares (1985); Christopher Highley, `Wales, Ireland, and 1 Henry IV', Renaissance Drama 21 (1990), 91-114; Philip Edwards, Threshold of a Nation: A study in English and Irish Drama (1979), esp. Ch. 4 `Nation and Empire', pp. 66-109; Robert Lane, `"When Blood is theirArgument": Class, Character, and Historymaking in Shakespeare's and Branagh's Henry V,' ELH 61 (1994); Michael Neill, "Henry V: A Modern Perspective", in the Folger Shakespeare edition of Henry V. 

Week 10 (14 May)  Defining Difference (1)

Texts: I Henry VI, King John

Readings: Peter Womack, "Imagining Communities: Theatres and             the English Nation in the C16th," in David Aers (ed.), Culture and History 1350-1600 (London: 1992), pp. 91-145; Richard Helgerson, "Staging Exclusion" in Forms of Nationhood

 

Week 11 (21May) Defining Difference (2): Civilisation, Wildness, and "Race"

Texts: Montaigne, "Of the Cannibals"; Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus (Goths and Moors)

Readings:  Las Casas "The Destruction of the Indies": Purchas, "George Best's Discourse"; Material from Hume & Whitehead, Wild Majesty;Bernard McGrane, Beyond Anthropology: "The Other in the Renaissance"; Hayden White, "The Forms of Wildness"; A. & V. Vaughan, Caliban: A Cultural History. 

Week 12 (28 May) "Race" and Alterity

Texts: Jonson, The Masques of Blackness and Beautie; Shakespeare, Othello

Readings: File material on Othello, "race" & alterity; Kim Hall, "Sexual Politics and Cultural Identity in The Masque of Blackness"; Hakluyt, The Voyages of Robert Gainsh, John Hawkins; John Leo (Africanus), A Geographical Historie of Africa (excerpt in file)                       

INTER-SEMESTER BREAK 

SEMESTER 2 

Week 1 (16 July)  Jews and Others

Texts Marlowe, The Jew of Malta; Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice; Elizabeth Cary, The Tragedy of Mariam

Readings: file     material on "The Jewish Other"; Greenblatt,   "Marlowe, Marx and Anti-Semitism; Emily Bartels "Marlowe, the Jew, and the Fictions of Difference"; Dympna Callaghan on Mariam 

Week 2 (23 July)  Empire, Race & Gender

 Text: Anthony and Cleopatra

Readings: Material from Patricia Parker and Margo Hendricks, Women, "Race" and Writing. File Material on A&C. 

Week 3 (30 July) Shakespeare and Translation

Texts: A Midsummer Night's Dream

Readings: Margo Hendricks, "Obscured by Dreams"; Michael Neill, "The World Beyond: Shakespeare and the Tropes of Translation";  Eric Cheyfitz, The Poetics of Imperialism: Translation & Colonization from The Tempest to Tarzan. 

Week 4 (6 August) The Discourse of Trade (1)

Texts:  Purchas, "King Solomon's Navy"; Edmund Scott, An Exact Discourse of the Subtilties, Fashions, Policies, Religion, and Ceremonies of the East Indians

Readings: Michael Neill, "Putting History to the Question: An Episode of Torture at Bantam in Java, 1604," in Putting History to the Question, pp. 285-309.

Week 5 (13 August)  The Discourse of Trade (2)

Texts: The Merchant of Venice; Beaumont & Fletcher, The           Island Princess; Heywood, The Fair Maid of the West

Readings: Shankar Raman, "Imaginary Islands: Staging the East," Renaissance Drama 26 (1995), 131-61; Michael Neill, "'Material Flames': Romance, Empire and Mercantile Fantasy in John Fletcher's Island Princess," in Putting History to the Question, pp. 312-38; Jean Howard, "An English Lass Amid the Moors: Gender, Race, and Sexuality, and National Identity in Heywood's The Fair Maide of the West," in Hendricks and Parker, Women, 'Race', and Writing, pp. 101-117; Anthony Parr, introduction to Three Renaissance Travel Plays(1995) 

Week 6 (20 Aug.) The Discourse of Plantation (1)

Texts: Sir Thomas More, Utopia; Hakluyt, "Western Planting"; Purchas, "Virginia's Verger (A Discourse on Virginia)"; Samuel Daniel, "To Prince Henrie"; Bermuda and Virginia pamphlets -- Robert Gray, A Good Speed to Virginia, William Strachey, A True Reportory of the Wracke; Sylvester Jourdain, A Discovery of the Barmudas. 

MID-SEMESTER BREAK (24 Aug-9 Sept) 

Week 7 (10 Sept) The Discourse of Plantation (2)

Texts: The Tempest; Beaumont and Fletcher, The Sea-Voyage

Readings: Alden and Virginia Vaughan: Caliban: A Cultural History; Peter Hulme and William Sherman, "The Tempest' and its Travels (Philadelphia, University Od Pennsylvania Press, 2000) 

Week 8 (17 Sept) Imperial Shakespeares (1)

Text: The Dryden-Davenant Tempest (The Enchanted Island)           

Week 9 (24 Sept)  Imperial Shakespeares (2)

Film: Shakespeare Wallah

Readings: Jyotsna Singh, "Different Shakespeares"; Ania Loomba, "Shakespeare & Theatrical Transformation in India" & "Hamlet in Mizoram" 

Week 10 (1 Oct)  Postcolonial Shakespeare (1)

Readings: Orkin and Loomba, Post-Colonial Shakespeares

Colonial, Post-Colonial Tempests and the re-reading of Caliban: Mannoni, Fanon, Lamming, Retamar et       al.

Week 11 (8 Oct): Postcolonial Shakespeare (2)

New Historicist and Cultural Materialist approaches.

Post-colonial re-workings of Othello, Antony and Cleopatra etc. 

Week 12 (15 October)  Playreading: Aime Cesaire's Une Tempete