ENGLISH 87: Political Shakespeare

Course Description

Shakespeare's plays dramatize, on the one hand, the rise and fall of empire (Titus Andronicus, Antony and Cleopatra), assassination of a dictator (Julius Caesar), succession crises (Lear, Cymbeline), and political domination (The Tempest). On the other, these plays stage the significance of a different kind of politics: race, gender, sex, and sexuality. How does this latter category inform the operations of the former? In this seminar we examine the space of the political in Shakespeare's period and our own.