ENG 343 - RENAISSANCE DRAMA AND SOCIETY

College of Arts & Sciences

Credit(s): 3

This course studies Elizabethan and Jacobean drama by Shakespeare’s predecessors and contemporaries. Although most people identify Shakespeare as the representative Renaissance playwright, he was only one member of a distinguished generation. Students will encounter a variety of popular dramatic genres in which Shakespeare either did not work or that he heavily adapted to his own ends: Turk plays, city comedy, unperformed ‘Closet drama,’ revenge tragedy, pastoral. Readings may include playwrights such as Thomas Kyd, Christopher Marlowe, Elizabeth Cary, Lady Mary Wroth, Thomas Middleton, John Webster, and others; and topics such as tragedy and comedy, sex and romance, urban life and the value of money, and racial and religious difference. Open to students from any major. Fulfills the ENG Early Period requirement. Provides ENG Major Elective credit and ENG minor credit.

Prereq: completion of UK Core Composition and Communication I-II requirement or equivalent.