GRADO
GUADEESTUDIODELAASIGNATURA
2PARTE|PLANDETRABAJOYORIENTACIONESPARASUDESARROLLO
2014-2015
LA RECEPCIN CRTICA DEL TEATRO DE SHAKESPEARE
LARECEPCINCRTICADELTEATRODESHAKESPEARE
1. STUDY PLAN: DESCRIPTION OF THE COURSE AND LEARNING ACTIVITIES
La Recepcin Crtica del Teatro de Shakespeare (Grado en Estudios Ingleses, First Semester, 5
European Credit Transfer System, i.e. ECTS, Optional Subject) is mainly addressed to those students who
are interested in the works of William Shakespeare and in Literary Theory applied to Shakespearean Studies.
It offers, first, an overview of the main critical approaches to Shakespeares work from the seventeenth
century to the end of the twentieth century, and, secondly, a detailed analysis of two of the playwrights most
important tragedies: Hamlet and Macbeth.
The whole structure of the subject is based on the different sections of the required textbook: Critical
Approaches to Shakespeare: Shakespeare for All Time. The textbook is divided into two main parts:
I. SHAKESPEAREAN CRITICAL HISTORY.
UNIT 1 presents critical approaches to Shakespeare from the seventeenth century to the first
half of the twentieth century.
UNIT 2 focuses on Shakespearean critical studies of the second half of the twentieth century.
Both units deal with the principal critical lines of study of Shakespeares literary production. The
student is provided with a panorama of the evolution of critical ideas about Shakespeares works
throughout history. After describing the main tenets of each critical school and their main
representatives, a section called Selection of Texts is included. This section presents critical
fragments about some key Shakespearean plays, and ocassionally a sonnet, written by the most
influential critics of each theoretical approach. It presents a selection of the most important critical
concepts of each fragment and their application to Shakespeares production. These critical
fragments deal with plays that the students have already read or studied for the course Ejes de la
Literatura Inglesa Medieval y Renacentista Inglesa (Grado en Estudios Ingleses, First Year
Compulsory Subject, 10 European Credit Transfer System or ECTS).
II. THE SHAKESPEAREAN STAGE: HAMLET AND MACBETH.
UNITS 3 and 4 concentrate on exhaustive studies of Hamlet and Macbeth respectively. Both
units are divided into three sections. The first one deals with the historical and literary contexts of the
plays and it focuses mainly on the dates of the plays composition and their sources. The second
section explores the most important critical ideas about each play from the seventeenth to the
twentieth centuries. The third section, entitled Textual Analysis, offers a close reading of the plays by
paying especial attention to the way language is used by Shakespeare.
The LEARNING ACTIVITIES 1 presented in the following STUDY PLAN FOR EACH UNIT are designed to help
students to achieve the required course-related learning results: the implementation of the necessary skills,
abilities and attitudes and the acquisition of the specific course knowledge:
1. Careful reading of the information on each unit provided in the Study Guide.
2. First close reading of the unit in the handbook. In the case of Units 3 and 4, the students should
read Hamlet and Macbeth beforehand).
See section 5. STUDY PLAN GUIDE for a detailed description of every learning activity of the Study Plan
activities listed here.
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3. Thorough comprehension of the compulsory material for each unit as well as the different critical
perspectives of the texts covered in each topic.
4. In-depth study and assimilation of the information of the unit.
5. Interaction with the teaching team.
6. Participation in debates and discussions in the online discussion rooms.
7. Self-evaluation exercises.
8. Prueba de Evaluacin Continua (PEC) (UNITS 3 and 4).
2. BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Required Textbook:
CEREZO MORENO, Marta (2005). Critical Approaches to Shakespeare: Shakespeare for All Time. Madrid:
UNED. (46511UD01A01). (Available at http://www.libreriavirtualuned.es).
2. Compulsory Reading Material (Shakespeares plays):
SHAKESPEARE, William 2003 (1985). Hamlet. Prince of Denmark. Ed. by Philip Edwards. The New
Cambridge Shakespeare. Rev. ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (ISBN 0521532523).
SHAKESPEARE, William 2008 (1997). Macbeth. Ed. by A. R. Braunmuller. The New Cambridge
Shakespeare. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (ISBN 0521680980).
Important note: the editions indicated in the manual: General Introduction (page 14) and the
General Bibliography (pages 329 and 330) are the previous editions to the ones indicated
here (the ones published in 2003 and 2008 respectively). All the page references in the manual
refer to the superseded editions, so if you use the latest editions you will possibly find
discrepancies. We will provide the correct page references on the virtual course whenever
necessary.
3. Recommended Textbooks for First-Year Subjects relevant to Recepcin Crtica del Teatro de
Shakespeare:
See section 2.5. STUDY GUIDELINES.
Textbook of Literatura Inglesa I: Ejes de la Literatura Inglesa Medieval y Renacentista, First Year Course,
Grado en Estudios Ingleses:
DE LA CONCHA MUOZ, ngeles y Marta CEREZO MORENO 2011. Ejes de la Literatura Inglesa Medieval y
Renacentista. Madrid: Ramn Areces.
Required bibliography of Comentario de Textos Literarios en Lengua Inglesa, First Year Course,
Grado en Estudios Ingleses:
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BARRY, Peter 2009 (2002). Beginning Theory. An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory. 3rd rev.
ed. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
The book:
RYAN, Michael 2007 (1998). Literary Theory: A Practical Introduction. 2nd rev. ed. Oxford: Blackwell.
is no longer required for the subject Comentario de Textos Literarios en Lengua Inglesa, First Year
Course, Grado en Estudios Ingleses as from the 2014-2015 academic course. However, it is useful for
this subject, RCTS, as it includes examples of readings from some of the critical points of view dealt with
in the handbook. If you took CTLLI before the present academic year and still have the book, you will
indeed find its information on the critical schools and its discussions of King Lear from different points of
view quite illuminating and helpful in your work with Hamlet and Macbeth.
The following dictionaries specialised in Shakespeares English are also recommended. These
dictionaries are especially useful to solve the comprehension problems derived from the changes in the
evolution of the English language. Some words and expressions used by Shakespeare have now
different meanings and may be problematic when discussing a specific part of the text. The critical
apparatus of the recommended critical editions solve many of these problems, but it is always useful to
have other reference materials:
CRYSTAL, David and Ben CRYSTAL 2002. Shakespeares Words. A Glossary and Language
Companion. With a Preface by Stanley Wells. London: Penguin.
ONIONS, C. T. 1989 (1986). A Shakespeare Glossary. Enlarged and revised throughout by Robert D.
Eagleson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, rptd.
Partridges dictionary on Shakespeares sexual and scatological language is also recommended.
This will help students understand bawdy puns and allusions that they would otherwise miss when
reading the text:
PARTRIDGE, Eric 2002 (1968) (1947). Shakespeares Bawdy. With a Preface by Stanley Wells.
Routledge Classics. London: Routledge, 3rd ed., rptd.
4. Extended List of Text Resources
This is intended only for students willing to go into central aspects of the subject for future postgraduate
research. The information provided by the books listed below is not necessary in order to obtain full
marks (10) in this subject course, but it is recommended as a basic reading list to all those students who
plan to study a Master and focus on Renaissance drama and Shakespeare studies.
OTHER RECOMMENDED EDITIONS OF SHAKESPEARES PLAYS:
The editions of the set plays published in the Norton Critical Editions series include a selection of
background texts, excerpts from key critical articles, and some complementary and derivative texts that
illustrate the cultural milieu of the plays, the evolution of critical interpretation, and the reception as well as
the cultural influence of the Shakespearean texts. These editions are important sources of information for
further reading as well as the development of research projects such as the Trabajo de Fin de Grado
(TFG), Trabajo Fin de Mster (TFM), papers, etc.
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MIOLA, Robert S. (ed.) 2011. Hamlet. Norton Critical Editions. New York: W. W. Norton.
MIOLA, Robert S. (ed.) 2014 (2004). Macbeth. Norton Critical Editions. New York: W. W. Norton.
CRITICISM:
BARKER, Deborah E. and Ivo KAMPS (eds.) 1995. Shakespeare and Gender: A History. London and New
York: Verso.
BLOOM, Harold 1998. Shakespeare. The Invention of the Human. London: Fourth State.
COYLE, Martin (ed.) 1992. Hamlet. Contemporary Critical Essays. New Casebooks. London: Macmillan.
DOLLIMORE, Jonathan 1989. Radical Tragedy. Religion, Ideology and Power in the Drama of Shakespeare
and His Contemporaries. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
and Alan SINFIELD (eds.) 1994. Political Shakespeare. Essays in Cultural Materialism. Manchester:
Manchester University Press.
DRAKAKIS, John (ed.) 1996. Shakespearean Tragedy. London and New York: Longman, 1996.
EAGLETON, Terry 1996. Literary Theory. An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell.
HIDALGO, Pilar 2001. Paradigms Found. Feminist, Gay and New Historicist Readings of Shakespeare.
Amsterdam: Rodopi.
GREENBLATT, Stephen 1984. Renaissance Self-Fashioning. From More to Shakespeare. Chicago and
London: The University of Chicago Press.
1997. Shakespearean Negotiations. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
KASTAN, D. S. (eds.) 1999. A Companion to Shakespeare. Oxford: Blackwell.
LEITCH, Vincent B. (ed.) 2010 (2001). The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. 2nd ed. New York
and London: W. W. Norton.
LOOMBA, Ania and M. ORKIN (eds.) 1998. Post-Colonial Shakespeares. London and New York: Routledge.
MCDONALD, Russ (ed.) 2004 (2003). Shakespeare: An Anthology of Criticism and Theory 1945-2000.
Malden, Massachusetts and Oxford: Blackwell.
PARKER, P. and G. HARTMAN (eds.) (1985). Shakespeare and The Question of Theory. New York and
London: Routledge.
SINFIELD, Alan (ed.) 1992. Macbeth. Contemporary Critical Essays. New Casebooks. London: Macmillan.
WELLS, Stanley (ed.) 1997. The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
WILSON, R. and R. DUTTON (eds.) 1994. New Historicism and Renaissance Drama. London and New
York: Longman.
3. COURSE SCHEDULE
The time schedule for each unit has been assigned having a student of average learning ability in
mind. The total number of hours necessary to complete satisfactorily the activities and tasks planned will have
to be adjusted to the calculation of 25 hours for each subject credit (ECTS). The course schedule is oriented
to fuel self-discipline and motivation, which will help students to schedule and manage their own learning.
The first term begins on Tuesday 7th October. The first week will be considered an introductory week
and will not be included within the Course Schedule (see the next page):
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UNIT
DATES
F I N I SH
Introduction week.
7th 10th
October
Week 1
(10th October)
13th 31st
October
Week 4
(31st October)
2. Critical Approaches to
Shakespeare: Second Half of
the 20th Century
3rd 21st
November
Week 7
(21st November)
15th19th
December 2014
1. Critical Approaches to
Shakespeare: from Ben Jonson
(1572/3-1637) to Cleanth
Brooks (1906-1994)
BY THE END OF
12th-16th
January 2015
Week 12
(16th January 2015)
19th 23rd
January 2015
Week 13
(23rd January 2015)
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4. STUDY GUIDELINES
Following the Bologna Process methodology, in order to achieve a correct learning of the contents of
the units, the students must bear in mind their LEARNING OBJECTIVES: the knowledge and learning skills and
attitudes, which the student must develop and apply in every unit. The accomplishment of the learning
objectives for each unit contributes to the acquisition of the course competences. The following list of results
of the acquisition of learning skills and attitudes apply to all four units of this course:
I. SKILL AND ABILITY-BASED LEARNING RESULTS:
The student must be able to:
1. Identify the main ideas of the unit and the compulsory reading material.
2. Understand the key set Shakespearean texts using, if necessary, a grammar, dictionaries and
specialised dictionaries.
3. Analyse and comment the compulsory passages.
4. Relate the key content of the unit with the compulsory reading materials to understand them better
and comment the play from specific critical points of view.
5. Analyse and discuss any part of the compulsory text (either set Shakespeare play) referring to the
key content of the unit.
6. Access the course's aLF online platform to consult material, make queries, interact with peers and
the teaching team, keep abreast with the course requirements, receive the latest course-related
news, etc.
7. Express correctly in an English academic register the literary knowledge acquired from the course
content and the compulsory readings.
8. Assimilate and internalise (not memorise, but understand and be able to explain in summarised
form) the information provided in the primary bibliography listed in section 2. BIBLIOGRAPHY and use
this information to analyse the texts.
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2. Be willing to study both on their own and in groups on the online aLF platform in order to reinforce
his/her interactive cooperative and collaborative learning.
3. Show their willingness to undertake an honest, realistic, constructive and productive selfassessment by checking the results of assignments with the model answers provided by the
teaching team and accept the constructive feedback and marking of the teaching team and the
Tutor Intercampus.
4. Strive to develop abstraction, comparative, relational, reflexive, critical, and analytical skills and
avoid unproductive memorisation (i.e. think and discuss the texts cogently).
5. Adhere to the assignment deadlines and exam schedules for the course.
6. Observe the commonly accepted standards of academic honesty and intellectual integrity and
never resort to plagiarism or academic fraud in the PEC and the exams.
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UNIT 1 CRITICAL APPROACHES TO SHAKESPEARE. FROM BEN JONSON (1572/3-1637) TO E. M. W.
TILLYARD (1889-1962)
1.1. CONTENTS
1.1. The seventeenth century: Neo-classical criticism
1.2. The eighteenth century: Editorial criticism
1.2.1. Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)
1.3. The nineteenth century: The Romantics
1.3.1. Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)
1.4. The nineteenth century: The Victorians
1.4.1. Edward Dowden (1843-1913)
1.4.2. A. C. Bradley (1851-1935)
1.5. The First half of the twentieth century
1.5.1. The emphasis on poetry and language: G. Wilson Knight (1895-1985), Caroline
Spurgeon (1869-1942), Wolfgang Clemen (1909-1990)
1.5.2. The play as theatrical artifice: Harley Granville-Barker (1877-1946) and Muriel C.
Bradbrook (1909-1993)
1.5.3. The Historical Approach: Hardin Craig (1875-1968), Theodore Spencer (1902-1949)
and E. M. W. Tillyard (1889-1962)
1.5.4. New Criticism: Cleanth Brooks (1906-1994)
1.2. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
Before focusing on the study on the main critical approaches to Shakespeare during the second half
of the twentieth century, it is advisable for students to become acquainted with the main lines of study
devoted to Shakespeare since the seventeenth century. The familiarity with leading Shakespearean critical
figures such as Samuel Johnson, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Andrew Cecil Bradley or George Wilson Knight is
essential in order to acquire a necessary overview of the Shakespearean critical world. The first unit aims to
show students how, since the seventeenth century, Shakespeares artistic legacy has been approched and
interpreted according to the conception of literature of each age and of each critic. The multiplicity of critical
lines shows, not just the various ways of interpreting and understanding Shakespeares texts, but also how
the rich complexity of his art is able to elicit different responses over the centuries.
1.3. COMPULSORY READING
Critical Approaches to Shakespeare. Shakespeare For All Time. Unit 1.
1.4. EXTENDED LIST OF TEXT RESOURCES
This is only for students willing to go into central aspects of the subject for future postgraduate
research. The information provided by the books listed below is not necessary in order to obtain full marks
(10) in this subject course, but it is recommended as a basic reading list to all those students who plan to
study a Master and focus on Renaissance drama and Shakespeare studies.
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BRADBROOK, Muriel C. 1990 (1935). Themes and Conventions of Elizabethan Tragedy. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
BRADLEY, A. C. 1992 (1904). Shakespearean Tragedy. Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth.
London:
Macmillan.
Online
(London:
Macmillan,
2nd
ed.,
1937):
http://archive.org/details/cu31924013159920.
BRATCHELL D. F. (1990). Shakespearean Tragedy. London and New York: Routledge.
CLEMEN, Wolfgang 1987 (1951). The Development of Shakespeares Imagery. London and New York:
Methuen.
COLERIDGE, Samuel Taylor 1985 (1818). Lectures and Notes on Shakespeare. Poems and Prose. Ed.
Kathleen Raine. London: Penguin Books. Online (Lectures and Notes on Shakspere and Other
English Poets. Now first collected by T. Ashe., London: George Bell & Sons, 1884):
http://archive.org/details/cu31924013156678.
DOWDEN, Edward 1892 (1875). Shakespeare: A Critical Study of His Mind and Art. London: Kegan Paul,
Trench, Trbner & Co., Ltd. Online (Shakspere: A Critical Study of His mind and Art, New York and
London: Harper and Brothers, 3rd ed., 1880): http://archive.org/details/shaksperecritica00dowd.
DRYDEN, John 1985 (1668). Of Dramatick Poesie. Poems and Prose. Eds. Grant, Douglas and Gamini
Salgado. Harmondsworth: Penguin. 147-225.
JOHNSON, Samuel 1998 (1765). Preface to The Plays of William Shakespeare. Johnson on Shakespeare. Ed.
R. W. Desai. London: Sangam Books. 96-137. Online (Samuel Johnson by Alice Meynell and G. K.
Chesterton,
London:
Herbert
&
Daniel,
[1911],
76-96):
http://archive.org/details/samueljohnson00johniala.
KNIGHT, G. Wilson 1995 (1930). The Wheel of Fire. Interpretations of Shakespearian Tragedy. London and
New York: Routledge: http://archive.org/details/wheeloffire001890mbp.
SPURGEON, Caroline 1999 (1935). Shakespeares Imagery and What It Tells Us. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
TILLYARD, E. M. W. 1990 (1943). Elizabethan World Picture. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.
1991 (1994). Shakespeares History Plays. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.
VICKERS, Brian (1974-1981). Shakespeare. The Critical Heritage. London and New York: Routledge. (Six
volumes on Shakespearean criticism from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries)
1.5. STUDY GUIDELINES
The student should follow the learning activities pointed out in Section 1. STUDY PLAN: DESCRIPTION OF
THE COURSE AND LEARNING ACTIVITIES and described in Section 5. PLAN STUDY GUIDE.
Throughout the different sections of this unit there are recurrent themes such as the ideas that the
critics have about Shakespearean characterisation, the use of the classical unities, and the recurrence and
relevance of imagery. Students are encouraged to make constant links between sections and between critics
belonging to different periods, or even to the same critical view, in order to establish as many differences and
similarities as possible. By doing so, they will acquire a more general and adequate sense of the development
of critical views on Shakespeare. The Selection of Texts section is essential in order to complement the
explanations about each critical line and to help students to make those links more easily. Students can find
additional information about most of the critics and texts mentioned in the unit in the Recommended Web
Sites Section of the textbook.
The book by D. F. Bratchell, Shakespearean Tragedy (1990) is not a required text for the course
although it is strongly recommended to those students willing to complete the information of the unit. It
presents very useful introductions to all the critical approaches presented in it. In the first part of this book,
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there is a selection of and a commentary on critical texts on Shakespeare from 1679 to 1950. The second
part is devoted to the critical views on Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello and King Lear.
1.6. COMPLEMENTARY EXERCISES
Doing the exercises presented in the sections of SELF-ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS, COMPLEMENTARY
EXERCISES, FURTHER KNOWLEDGE EXERCISES and KEY TERMS, that the students can find after each unit in the
textbook Critical Approaches to Shakespeare. Shakespeare for All Time will help them measure their own
achievement of learning results.
***
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UNIT 2 CRITICAL APPROACHES TO SHAKESPEARE. SECOND HALF OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
2.1. CONTENTS
2.1. Structuralism
2.2. Poststructuralism and Deconstruction
2.3. New Historicism and Cultural Materialism
2.4. Gender Studies
2.4.1. Feminism
2.4.2. Gay Studies
2.5. Postcolonialism
2.2. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
The following unit presents an overview of the most important critical approaches to Shakespeare
during the second half of the twentieth century. The core of the unit focuses on poststructuralist critical lines
such as new historicism, cultural materialism, gender studies, psychoanalysis and postcolonialism.
Section 2.1. on structuralism is necessary in order to offer the context to which poststructuralist
analysis stands against. Section 2.2. on poststructuralism and deconstruction presents the new definitions of
structure, text, author and reader that students need to bear in mind in order to understand the critical
mechanisms used by new historicists, materialists, critics working on gender studies, psychoanalysts or
postcolonial critics. It is essential to assimilate the different conceptions of language that structuralism and
poststructuralism offer since both critical approaches apply their linguistic views to the analysis of texts.
Poststructuralism defines language, not as a stable and enclosed structure of meaning as structuralism
regarded it, but as an unstable locus without a centre, where meaning is not fixed. Therefore, according to
poststructuralism, a text is open to multiple interpretations. This unit develops this idea in detail.
The poststructuralist idea of subjectivity, explained in section 2.3., as opposed to the humanist
definition of the human being as the recipient of a transhistorical essence, is also central for a correct
assimilation of poststructuralist analyses of Shakespeares works. Characters are no longer analysed as
human beings that share qualities supposedly common to all humankind. Poststructuralists analyse human
identity as fashioned by the social, historical or political contexts of the time. The subject is considered as a
cultural artefact. The concept of cultural difference is also vital to understand these lines of approach. There
is not a human essence that links all human beings since our social, religious, political or economic
environment makes us all different from each other according to poststructuralists. Therefore, the term
difference in relation to subjectivity is also to be taken into account when studying this unit.
These critical approaches also relate the literary discourse with social, political, historical or religious
discourses having currency in Shakespeares time. His works are sometimes considered as strengthening
Elizabethan and Jacobean social and political discourses. Sometimes, on the contrary, they are viewed as
challenges to these dominant discourses and their authority. But these critics, especially the materialists,
also point out the contemporary relevance of the analysis of the playwrights work. Shakespeare is then
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appropriated, and sometimes manipulated, in order to strengthen or defy certain twentieth- and early twentyfirst century discourses.
2.3. COMPULSORY READING
Critical Approaches to Shakespeare. Shakespeare For All Time. Unit 2.
2.4. EXTENDED LIST OF TEXT RESOURCES
Only for students willing to go into central aspects of the subject for future postgraduate research.
The information provided by the books listed below is not necessary in order to obtain full marks (10) in this
subject course.
BARKER, Francis and Peter Hulme 1996 (1985). Nymphs and reapers heavily vanish: the discursive contexts of The Tempest. Alternative Shakespeares. Ed. John Drakakis. London and New York:
Routledge. 191-205.
BELSEY, Catherine 1996 (1985). Disrupting sexual difference: meaning and gender in the comedies.
Alternative Shakespeares. Ed. John Drakakis. London and New York: Routledge. 166-90.
DOLLIMORE, Jonathan 1989 (1984). Radical Tragedy. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
and Alan Sinfield (eds.) 1996 (1985). Political Shakespeare. Essays in Cultural Materialism. Manchester:
Manchester University Press.
DUSINBERRE, Juliet 1996 (1975). Shakespeare and the Nature of Women. Basingstoke, Hampshire and
London: Palgrave Macmillan.
EAGLETON, Terry 1996 (1983). Literary Theory. An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell.
FOUCAULT, Michel 1990 (1976). The History of Sexuality. Volume 1. An Introduction. Harmondsworth:
Penguin Books.
FREUD, Sigmund 1965 (1900). The Interpretation of Dreams. New York: Avon Books.
GOLDBERG, Jonathan 1995 (1992). Sodometries. Renaissance Texts, Modern Sexualities. Stanford: Stanford
University Press.
GREENBLATT, Stephen 1997 (1988). Shakespearean Negotiations. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
1984 (1980): Renaissance Self-Fashioning. From More to Shakespeare. Chicago and London: The
University of Chicago Press.
HOLLAND, Norman N. 1966 (1964). Psychoanalysis and Shakespeare. New York, Toronto and London:
McGraw-Hill.
JARDINE, Lisa (1983). Still Harping on Daughters. Women and Drama in the Age of Shakespeare. Hemel
Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
JONES, Ernest 1955 (1949). Hamlet and Oedipus. A Classic Study in the Psychoanalysis of Literature. New
York: Doubleday.
LEITCH, Vincent B. (ed.) 2010 (2001). The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. 2nd ed. New York and
London: W. W. Norton.
LENZ, Carolyn Ruth Swift, Gayle Greene and Carol Thomas Neely (eds.) 1983 (1980). The Womans Part.
Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
LOOMBA, Ania and Martin ORKIN (eds.) (1998). Post-Colonial Shakespeares. London and New York:
Routledge.
MCDONALD, Russ (ed.) (2003). Shakespeare: An Anthology of Criticism and Theory 1945-2000. Malden,
Massachusetts and Oxford: Blackwell.
ORGEL, Stephen (1996). Impersonations. The performance of gender in Shakespeares England. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
SELDEN, Raman, Peter WIDDOWSON, and Peter BROOK (eds.) 2004 (1993). A Readers Guide to
Contemporary Literary Theory. London: Pearson, 5th ed. Online:
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http://faculty.mu.edu.sa/public/uploads/1385446724.9026contemporary-literary-theory-5th-edition.pdf
SMITH, Bruce R. 1994 (1991). Homosexual Desire in Shakespeares England. Chicago and London: The
University of Chicago Press.
WAYNE, Valerie (ed). 1995 (1991). The Matter of Difference. Materialist Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare.
New York and London: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
WOODBRIDGE, Linda (1984). Women and the English Renaissance: Literature and the Nature of Womankind,
1540-1620. Brighton: The Harvester Press.
2.5. STUDY GUIDELINES
The student should follow the learning activities pointed out in Section 1. STUDY PLAN: DESCRIPTION
OF THE COURSE AND LEARNING ACTIVITIES and described in Section 5. PLAN STUDY GUIDE.
Certain aspects analysed in this unit may be difficult to assimilate because of their complexity. For a
correct study of the unit, students should go back to the textbook of Literatura Inglesa I: Ejes de la Literatura
Inglesa Medieval y Renacentista (First Year, Grado Estudios Ingleses), Ejes de la Literatura Inglesa
Medieval y Renacentista (2011), and re-read carefully chapter 5: El Teatro de Shakespeare (1):
Introduccin. There they will find useful introductions to new historicism, cultural materialism and gender
studies.
The required handbook in Comentario de Textos Literarios en Lengua Inglesa (First Year, Grado en
Estudios Ingleses) will also be of help in case students need to review concepts related to literary theory:
BARRY, Peter 2009 (2002). Beginning Theory. An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory. 3rd rev. ed.
Manchester: Manchester University Press.
The book:
RYAN, Michael 2007 (1998). Literary Theory: A Practical Introduction. 2nd rev. ed. Oxford: Blackwell.
is no longer required for the subject Comentario de Textos Literarios en Lengua Inglesa, First Year
Course, Grado en Estudios Ingleses as from the 2014-2015 academic course. However, it is useful for this
subject, RCTS, as it includes examples of readings from some of the critical points of view dealt with in the
handbook. If you took CTLLI before the present academic year and still have the book, you will indeed find
its information on the critical schools and its discussions of King Lear from different points of view quite
illuminating and helpful in your work with Hamlet and Macbeth.
The selected texts used in Unit 2 will clarify many of the concepts and will illustrate how
poststructuralist ideas are applied to Shakespeares texts. Many of the selected texts include footnotes that
invite students to relate them to other texts in other sections. By doing so, they will observe how critical
commentaries on certain texts complement or oppose each other. This will help them to have a clear idea of
how Shakespeares works can be subjected to a multiplicity of interpretations that not only enrich the texts
but also give a prominent role to the reader.
In case students want to gather further information besides the contents provided in the unit on
Contemporary Literary Theory, the following texts are recommended:
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SELDEN, Raman, Peter WIDDOWSON, and Peter BROOKER 2005 (1993). A Readers Guide to
Contemporary Literary Theory. London: Pearson, 5th ed. Online:
http://faculty.mu.edu.sa/public/uploads/1385446724.9026contemporary-literary-theory-5th-edition.pdf
LEITCH, Vincent 2010. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. New York: W. W. Norton, 2nd ed.
On Shakespearean criticism, we also recommend:
MCDONALD, Russ 2004 (2003). Shakespeare: An Anthology of Criticism and Theory 1945-2000. Oxford:
Wiley-Blackwell.
It is a collection of the most important CRITICAL essays on Shakespeares works of the second half of
the twentieth century. It could be of great help to those students interested in reading the whole extension of
some of the articles referred to in Unit 1 and Unit 2 such as Cleanth Brooks The Naked Babe and the
Cloak of Manliness, Tillyards Cosmic Background in Shakespeares History Plays, Stephen Greenblatts
Invisible Bullets, Jonathan Dollimores Radical Tragedy, Catherine Belseys Disrupting Sexual Difference:
Meaning and Gender in the Comedies and Francis Barker and Peter Hulmes Nymphs and reapers heavily
vanish: The Discursive Con-texts of The Tempest. Among many others, students can find texts by critics
that are referred to in Unit 1 and 2 such as Wolfgang Clemen, Louis Adrian Montrose, Jean Howard, Alan
Sinfield, Stephen Orgel, Bruce Smith, Linda Woodbridge, and Ania Loomba.
Also, students can find additional information about most of the critics and texts mentioned in the unit
in the Recommended Web Sites Section of the handbook. Students are also strongly recommended the web
site that offers a glossary of literary theory and the one that presents general information about contemporary
critical approaches, in case certain concepts are not clear.
2.6. COMPLEMENTARY EXERCISES
Doing the exercises presented in the sections of SELF-ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS, COMPLEMENTARY
EXERCISES, FURTHER KNOWLEDGE EXERCISES and KEY TERMS, that the students can find after each unit in the
textbook Critical Approaches to Shakespeare. Shakespeare for All Time, will help them measure their own
acquisition of skills and their achievement of learning results.
***
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UNIT 3 HAMLET
3.1. CONTENTS
3.1. Hamlet: Historical and Literary Contexts
3.1.1. Date
3.1.2. Main Sources of Hamlet
3.2. Critical Approaches to Hamlet
3.2.1. Some critical approaches from the eighteenth to the first half of the twentieth century
3.2.2. Contemporary Critical Approaches to Hamlet: Catherine Belsey, Leonard
Tennenhouse and Elaine Showalter
3.3. Textual Analysis
3.2. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
UNIT 3 is devoted to the analysis of the most widely-read tragedy by Shakespeare: Hamlet. The unit is
divided into three sections:
a. The first one offers information about the textual and historical contexts of the play. Despite the fact
that it deals with issues such as dates and sources, it presents interesting pieces of information and not mere
facts to be memorised. The play will be always located within the social, theatrical and political circumstances
of the period in which it was composed. In this way, the play will be seen as an integrated piece of its age.
b. The second section deals with a selection of critical studies about Hamlet since the eighteenth
century. The student will have the opportunity to see how Shakespearean critics that have been studied in
Units 1 and 2, such as Johnson, Coleridge, A. C. Bradley or G. Wilson Knight, have analysed the play. Their
studies show the variety of interpretations that the complexity of certain aspects of Hamlet has provoked.
Also, other relevant analyses of Hamlet by critics such as T. S. Eliot or John Dover Wilson will be looked into.
The second part of section 2 is devoted to contemporary critical approaches to Hamlet: a cultural materialist
approach by Catherine Belsey, a new historicist approach by Leonard Tennenhouse, and a feminist approach
by Elaine Showalter. It is essential to have a clear view of the main tenets of such critical lines explained in
Units 1 and 2 in order to understand their conclusions about certain aspects of the play.
c. The third section presents a textual analysis of the play in which the student will study its
metatheatrical allusions, the role and signification of the Ghost, the ambiguous relationship between Ophelia
and Hamlet, and the philosophical ideas presented by the play about human nature, the world, and death.
3.3. COMPULSORY READING
Critical Approaches to Shakespeare. Shakespeare For All Time. Unit 3.
EDWARDS, Philip (ed.) 2003 (1985). Hamlet. Prince of Denmark. The New Cambridge Shakespeare.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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3.4. EXTENDED LIST OF TEXT RESOURCES
Only for students willing to go into central aspects of the subject for future research as postgraduate
students. The information provided by the books listed below is not necessary in order to obtain full marks
(10) in this subject course.
BELSEY, Catherine 1985. The Subject of Tragedy. London and New York: Routledge.
BRADLEY, A. C. 1992 (1904). Lecture III. Shakespeares Tragic Period. Hamlet. Shakespearean Tragedy.
London: MacMillan. 64-107. Online (London: Macmillan, 2nd ed., 1905, rptd. 1937, 79-128):
http://archive.org/details/cu31924013159920.
COLERIDGE, Samuel Taylor 1985 (1818). Lectures and Notes on Shakespeare. Poems and Prose. Ed.
Kathleen Raine. London: Penguin Books. Online (Lectures and Notes on Shakspere and Other
English Poets. Now first collected by T. Ashe., London: George Bell & Sons, 1884):
http://archive.org/details/cu31924013156678.
ELIOT, T. S. 1965 (1953). Hamlet. Selected Prose. Ed. John Hayward. Harmondsworth: Penguin. 98-103.
BLOOM, Harold 1999. Shakespeare. The Invention of the Human. London: Fourth Estate.
BULLOUGH, Geoffrey (ed.) 1978 (1973). Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare. Vol. VII. London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul..
JENKINS, Harold (ed.) 1982. Hamlet. The Arden Shakespeare. London: Methuen.
KNIGHT, G. Wilson 1995 (1930). The Embassy of Death: An Essay on Hamlet. The Wheel of Fire.
Interpretations of Shakespearian Tragedy. London and New York: Routledge. 17-46:
http://archive.org/details/wheeloffire001890mbp.
SHOWALTER, Elaine 1993 (1985). Representing Ophelia: Women, Madness, and the Responsibilities of
Feminist Criticism. Shakespeare and The Question of Theory. Eds. Patricia Parker and Geoffrey
Hartman. New York and London: Routledge. 77-94.
TENNENHOUSE, Leonard 1986. Power on Display. The Politics of Shakespeares Genres. New York and
London: Methuen.
WILSON, John Dover 1979 (1935). What Happens in Hamlet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
3.5. STUDY GUIDELINES
The student should follow the learning activities pointed out in Section 1. STUDY PLAN: DESCRIPTION OF
COURSE AND LEARNING ACTIVITIES and described in Section 5. PLAN STUDY GUIDE. The first
recommendation is that students read the play before reading the unit. Reading the works of literature greatly
simplifies learning the theoretical explanations since it allows students to determine the relevant ties between
each of them quickly. After reading the unit, they should read the play again as they will enjoy this second
reading much more and will discover new aspects of the play that they did not perceive the first time. The
edition of Hamlet used in this unit is The New Cambridge Shakespeare edition of Hamlet, Prince of
Denmark edited by Philip Edwards (2003) (ISBN 0521532523).
THE
Reading the play also means reading the footnotes in Edwards edition. Students should not skip over
these notes to the play. They facilitate their understanding of certain passages much more clear. The study of
Units 1 and 2 is also very helpful in order to assimilate and internalise (not memorise) the contents of section
2.
It is also very important to take into account that the third section of Textual Analysis is completed by
the information that can be found in pages 40 to page 61 in the introduction of The New Cambridge
Shakespeare edition of Hamlet by Philip Edwards (2003).
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The footnotes in each section are also a crucial source of information. They define concepts, they
provide information about authors or expand certain ideas. They also refer to lines of the play that illustrate
and reinforce the idea that is being studied at that point. They also direct students either to some pages of
Edwardss introduction or to some of his footnotes.
***
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4. UNIT 4 MACBETH
4.1. CONTENTS
4.1. Macbeth: Historical and Literary Contexts
4.1.1. Date
4.1.2. The interest in Macbeths story during Shakespeares time
4.1.3. Main Sources of Macbeth
4.2. Critical Approaches to Macbeth
4.2.1. Some critical approaches from the seventeenth to the first half of the twentieth century.
4.2.2. Contemporary Critical Approaches to Macbeth: Janet Adelman and Alan Sinfield.
4.3. Textual Analysis
4.2. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
UNIT 4 is devoted to the analysis of one of Shakespeares greatest tragedies: Macbeth. The unit in
divided into three sections:
a. The first one offers information about the historical and textual contexts of the play. The analysis of
Macbeth and its contexts locates the play within the social and political circumstances of the period in which it
was composed. This section presents the play as a text of its age.
b. The second section deals with a selection of critical studies about Macbeth written since the
seventeenth century. Traditional analyses such as Bradleys and Knights are of great interest since they give
a complete overview of the main themes and images used by Shakespeare and, therefore, they work as
excellent introductions to the play. As regards the contemporary approaches to the play, the section offers a
summary of the critical writings about Macbeth by two crucial Shakespearean critics: Janet Adelman and Alan
Sinfield, representatives of the way contemporary critical approaches such as gender studies, psychoanalysis
or cultural materialism examine Macbeth.
c. The third section is entirely devoted to the textual analysis of Macbeth. It deals with the analysis of
its main themes and images by offering textual evidence to illustrate them.
4.3. COMPULSARY READING MATERIAL
Critical Approaches to Shakespeare. Shakespeare for all time. Unit 4.
BRAUNMULLER, A. R. (ed.) 2008 (1997). Macbeth. The New Cambridge Shakespeare. 2nd ed. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
4.4. EXTENDED LIST OF TEXT RESOURCES
This is intended only for students willing to go into central aspects of the subject for future research
as postgraduate students. The information provided by the books listed below is not necessary in order to
obtain full marks (10) in this subject course, but it is recommended as a basic reading list to all those students
who plan to study a Master and focus on Renaissance drama and Shakespeare studies.
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ADELMAN, Janet (1996). Born of Woman: Fantasies of Maternal Power in Macbeth. Eds. Shirley Nelson
Garner and Madelon Sprengnether. Shakespearean Tragedy and Gender. Bloomington and
Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. 105-34.
BRADLEY, A. C. 1992 (1904). Lecture IX. Macbeth. Shakespearean Tragedy. London: Macmillan. 290-321.
Online
(London:
Macmillan,
2nd
ed.,
1905,
rptd.
1937,
79-128):
http://archive.org/details/cu31924013159920.
BROOKS, Cleanth 1980 (1968). The Naked Babe and the Cloak of Manliness. Shakespeare. Macbeth. Ed.
John Wain. London and Basingstoke: Macmillan. 183-201.
BULLOUGH, Geoffrey (ed.) 1978 (1973). Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare. Vol.VII. London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul / New York: Columbia University Press.
KNIGHT, G.Wilson 1995 (1930). Macbeth and the Metaphysic of Evil. The Wheel of Fire. Interpretations of
Shakespearian Tragedy. London and New York: Routledge. 141-59. Online (Cleveland, Ohio:
Meridian Books, 1957, rptd. 1964): http://archive.org/details/wheeloffire001890mbp.
SINFIELD, Alan 1994 (1992). History, Ideology and Intellectuals. Eds. Richard Wilson and Richard Dutton.
New Historicism and Renaissance Drama. London and New York: Longman. 167-80.
TILLYARD, E. M. W. 1990 (1943). Macbeth. Shakespeares History Plays. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.
319-22.
4.5. STUDY GUIDELINES
Students should follow the learning activities pointed out in Section 1. STUDY PLAN: DESCRIPTION OF
THE COURSE AND LEARNING ACTIVITIES and described in Section 5. PLAN STUDY GUIDE. As in the case of
Hamlet, the first recommendation is that students read the play before reading the unit. Reading the works of
literature greatly simplifies learning the theoretical explanations since it allows students to determine the
relevant ties between each of them and the text quickly. After reading the unit, they should read the play
again since they will enjoy this second reading much more and will discover new aspects of the play that were
not perceived the first time.
The assimilation of the information of the first two units is also vital in order to study the section on
critical approaches to Macbeth. The footnotes constitute another very important source of information. They
clarify certain issues and they point out the sources from which students can obtain more information about
important themes of the play. They also refer to lines of Macbeth that illustrate the topics the unit is dealing
with. Many of the footnotes direct the student to the introduction to The New Cambridge Shakespeare
edition of Macbeth edited by A. R. Braunmuller (2008) (ISBN 0521680980). This is the set edition that will
be used in the unit and its notes are essential in order to understand the action and meaning of many scenes.
The notes to the play are also a relevant source of information.
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***
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5. STUDY PLAN GUIDE
5.1. LEARNING ACTIVITIES
To ensure each unit is studied properly, students must complete the following LEARNING ACTIVITIES in
the order they are given. At the start of the course, students must understand the objectives of all the learning
activities specified in the study plan:
1. Carefully read the information on each unit provided in this Study Guide to find out which
readings are compulsory, what the objectives and potential difficulties of each unit are and what supplemental
material is available. The aim of this learning activity is to help students to organise their studies effectively
from the start of the course so that they can take full advantage of their time and, consequently, obtain the
best possible results. This will allow them to determine which aspects they find most difficult based on their
knowledge of each topic covered in the course.
2. First close reading of the unit. The goal is for students to familiarise themselves with the material
they have to study and to obtain information that will help with the compulsory readings, Hamlet and Macbeth,
which constitute the foundation of the course. (In the case of Units 3 and 4 the student should read the plays
beforehand).
3. Thorough comprehension of the compulsory material for each unit as well as the different
critical perspectives of the texts covered in each topic. Close reading of the Selection of Texts section and of
Hamlet and Macbeth is a core part of the course and will help show students that what is most important is
not the memorisation of concepts, but the reflection on these ideas and their application to the texts.
As stated above, in the case of Units 3 and 4, it is recommended that students first do a quick
preliminary reading in order to become familiar with the text and understand the plot of the play.
Then they should read the text again carefully and closely, stopping to look up new words in the
dictionary and to take note of everything they find interesting such as the characters, formal elements, stylistic
devices, recurrent metaphors and semantic fields, dramatic strategies and conventions, the use of narration
in the dialogues of the characters, literary allusions etc.
Students must analyse the texts and study the language as well as the rhetorical and stylistic
techniques used by the Shakespeare and their role in the possible objectives of the plays. In the exam,
students will be required to analyse a text. In their analysis they will have to answer a series of questions
related to the main contents of the text and they must always establish cogent links between the stylistic
devices used and the roles these rhetorical and linguistic strategies play in addition to which effects they
produce throughout the text.
Students are encouraged not to limit themselves to the information indicated in the unit but to read
other materials they find interesting and that are noted in the introductions and footnotes of the set Hamlet
and Macbeth editions.
4. After students have carefully read the compulsory material, they should re-read and study the
unit. The explanations provided in the units help students to situate the compulsory readings within their
social and literary contexts, facilitating their comprehension. Students must always try to identify how the
compulsory material clearly and concisely illustrates the theoretical concepts discussed in the units.
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5. Interaction with the teaching team. To ensure a positive and successful distance-learning
experience, students can contact on line the teaching staff (Dr Marta Cerezo and teaching assistant Jess
Cora), who will help them resolve any course-related queries which may require a more in-depth explanation
suited to their specific needs. The teaching staff will motivate students to develop their critical-thinking skills
and also fuel their interest in Shakespeares work.
6. Participation in debates and discussions in the online discussion rooms. The goal here is to
encourage students to study and exchange ideas and, in general, to provide a place for students living either
in Spain or abroad to interact with their peers and teachers. The online discussion rooms serve as an open
platform where students can freely share their opinions about, interpretations of and information on the
literary texts they are studying. This fosters collaborative learning, one of the main goals of the Bologna
Process and promotes diversity. The framework provided by the online discussion rooms contributes to the
development of students' reflective-thinking skills. The support learning material and critical-thinking activities
offered in this course are designed to spark students' interest in topics that integrate literature into the social,
cultural and political world around them. The focus on poststructuralist critical approaches merges the past
with the present and literary analysis with ideological debate. If the online discussion rooms are a dynamic
communication and learning tool, they can favour a positive learning environment for students and help to
build up their confidence levels.
7. Self-evaluation exercises. At the end of UNITS 1 and 2 there is a section with SELF-ASSESSMENT
QUESTIONS and a COMPLEMENTARY EXERCISE. At the end of UNITS 3 and 4 there is a section with SELFASSESSMENT QUESTIONS and a FURTHER KNOWLEDGE EXERCISE. The questions asked in these sections are
similar to those that will appear in the exams as they focus on the most important aspects of the units and
compulsory reading. Students are encouraged to answer all questions in order to improve their understanding
of the contents of all the units. It is recommended that students do all the exercises that correspond to each
unit once they have finished studying it. Thus the material will be fresh and completing the assignments will
allow them to determine how well they have understood and assimilated the information. They are then
advised to check their answers against the course guidelines. Lastly, they should incorporate any corrections
and make a final draft to check their own work against the model answers once they are available online on
the course platform.
8. Prueba de Evaluacin Continua (PEC). The purpose of the PEC is for students to acquire
knowledge in an organised fashion, following a gradual learning process. Completing them without the help of
any notes or supplementary material is a valuable learning experience and gives students the opportunity to
assess their comprehension, assimilation and ability to analyse and discuss the unit-related content and
compulsory readings.
The PEC will be posted on the virtual course during Week 9 of the schedule. Students will be
provided with one text from Hamlet and another one from Macbeth. Students will have to choose one of these
texts and make a commentary by answering several questions about the fragment. Thus, the PEC will follow
the same format as the Further Knowledge Exercises of Units 3 and 4.
The assignment must be uploaded in Word format to the Entrega de Trabajos section on the aLF
platform before Monday 6th January 2015. It will be marked by the intercampus tutor before Monday 19th
January 2015. Once they are corrected and marked, the intercampus tutor will post the students' marks on
the same online platform. Students will be able to access their marks and evaluation comments on their
assignments in the same section of the aLF platform.
The PEC is not compulsory in order to pass the subject, but it will be necessary if students aim at
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obtaining more than 8 points in their final mark.
If students decide not to turn them in, they can still use them as self-evaluation exercises that can be
checked against the model answers that will be made available online after the corresponding deadline for
the PEC (Monday 6th January 2015). In this case, the final mark will be determined only by their results on the
exam in the First Semester (late January or early February depending on the exam you choose to sit for the
exam) or in September. In this case full marks will be 8 points corresponding to the maximum mark of
the exam, the exam being marked out of 8 points (not handing in the PEC means that you forfeit 20% of
the final mark, i.e. 2 points).
On the other hand, students may hand their PEC in to the intercampus tutor so that he can mark them as
continuous-assessment exercises, in which case the PEC mark given by the intercampus tutor will make up
20% of the final mark. The marks received on these exercises, along with the one from the exam students sit,
will be used to calculate their final mark. In this case the exam will also be marked out of 8 points, but to
this mark a maximum of 2 points will be added up in accordance to the mark obtained in the PEC.
Examples:
Student who submits the PEC:
PEC mark: 8 out of 10 (1.6 points out of the maximum of 2 points)
Exam mark: 6 out of 8
Final mark: 6 + 1.6 = 7.6
Student who does not submit the PEC:
PEC mark: - (no option to the maximum of 2 points)
Exam mark: 6 out of 8
Final mark: 6
5.2. ASSESSMENT OF THE WRITTEN EXAM (PRUEBA PRESENCIAL) AND MARKING CRITERIA
The assessment of the course will be based on the PEC and the final evaluation in the form of a written
exam or prueba presencial that you will take in your local Centro Asociado on the dates indicated in the
official UNED exams calendar in January or February and September (this is a first-term subject, so there are
no May-June exams, there are only January-February exams and then the September exams).
This exam will be divided into two parts. Part One will consist in a textual analysis through precise
questions on a fragment from one of the compulsory readings studied during the course. In Part Two,
students will be asked to answer two theoretical questions out of three. Students will be awarded a maximum
of 4 points for the textual analysis and 2 points for every question from Part Two.
Assessment of the written exam will be based on the following marking criteria:
1. It is compulsory to answer both parts of the exam. Those students who do leave a part of the exam or
one of the questions from Part Two unanswered will fail the exam.
2. The exam will be marked out of 8.
3. Students will be expected to produce answers whose contents are correct, precise, clearly exposed
and well structured. They will also be required to show a high command of English grammar and
written academic discourse.
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4. The exam is worth 80% of the final mark and the PEC is worth 20% as indicated above.
5. It is necessary to pass the exam with a minimum mark of 4 points (4 out of 8) so that the exam
mark and PEC mark are added.
6. The final mark is the result of the sum of the PEC and the exam. The sum of the exam and
PEC marks must be 5 points in order to pass.
7. If a student does not submit the PEC, the final result of the exam must be 5 out of 8 points in
order to pass the subject.
In order to achieve a good mark in the written exam it is important to take into account the following tips:
1. Students must read carefully the formulation of the questions. Students must respond to all aspects
of the questions providing relevant arguments and material. Very often, they leave part of the
question unanswered or make reference to other elements that are irrelevant to the proposed theme.
They must make sure they restrict their answer to the proposed question.
2. It is essential that students demonstrate a solid knowledge of the compulsory readings, Hamlet and
Macbeth, and their main themes. Besides, they must demonstrate a solid grasp of critical concepts
and interconnections, as they must be able to apply critical concepts to the literary texts.
3. The written exams must be well presented. Students must write neatly and tidily with an effective
organisation and clear, persuasive and logically developed arguments. They must demonstrate their
proficiency in the English language: correct spelling, punctuation, paragraph division, grammar,
cohesion and coherence are demanded.
6. GLOSSARY
In this section the student can find the definition of basic concepts that will be dealt with throughout
the course.
Binary Oppositions. A structural analysis of a text aims to find the laws of parallelism, relations,
equivalences, etc. by which the linguistic structures within the literary text work. The most characteristic
method of structural analysis is the organisation of texts in binary oppositions. The concept of the binary
pairs springs from the Saussurean idea that the meaning of a sign depends on its differential relationship with
another sign. For structural anthropologists, for instance, binary oppositions such as man/woman,
nature/culture, light/dark, reason/passion, etc. give shape to the functioning of every culture and ultimately to
the structure of human thought. Within these pairs, the second term is always considered subordinate to the
first one. By applying the same methods, the literary structuralist views the text in similar terms and attempts
to organise it in structured patterns able to show the relation between its hierarchical and opposite units.
(Critical Approaches, p. 68)
Carnival. Some cultural materialists have used Mikhail Bakhtins concept of Carnival in order to see
in the social phenomenon how popular culture turns into an oppositional voice to authority. This idea of
Carnival reveals the power of popular voices to disrupt official order by mocking it and using parody and the
grotesque in order to challenge social rigidity and rules. During Carnival everything is subverted and turned
upside down. It symbolises the unstable nature of official power structures. (Critical Approaches, p. 90)
Close reading. The method New Criticism used was known as close reading. It entailed a thorough
examination of structural and stylistic elements such as words, syntax, symbolism, metaphors,
characterisation, argument, setting, tone, rhythm, meter, diction, etc. These critics were determined to find out
in what ways all these elements related to each other and how, as a whole, they fashioned the organic unity
of the work giving it its meaning. (Critical Approaches, p. 52)
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Cross-dressing. Boys, men and women in early modern England regularly donned the clothing of
the opposite sex for diverse reasons and effects. It is well known, for example, that boys played womens
roles in the early modern public theatre, a convention that was variously condemned, accepted and
celebrated by early modern audiences, and occasionally manipulated to spectacular effect by early modern
playwrights especially when those cross-dressed women cross-dressed again as boys in the fictional
world of the play. It is less well known that some women evidently cross-dressed as men in the streets of
London Middletons play The Roaring Girl, for example, focused on the notorious career of Mary Frith, or
Moll Cutpurse, a real-life thief, whore, brawler, and bawd who dressed in mens apparel. Indeed, the practice
of female transvestism was apparently so widespread that in 1620 King James ordered the clergy to inveigh
vehemently against the insolency of our women, and their wearing of broad brimmed hats, pointed doublets,
their hair cut short or shorn, and some of them stilettoes or poniards. http://english.dal.ca/Classes/200708%20Upper%20Levels/4806.php (See Critical Approaches, pp. 105, 111, 145-155)
Cultural materialism. Raymond Williams coined the term cultural materialism, which Jonathan
Dollimore defines in the foreword to the first edition of Political Shakespeare. According to Dollimore, the term
culture does not refer to the arts, literature, music etc. but to a whole system of significations by which a
society or a section of it understands itself and its relations with the world. The term materialism implies that
such a culture cannot be isolated from the material conditions of society such as politics and economy. As a
constituent part of such a culture, of such a signifying system, literature is also embedded within these
material ideological forces. (Critical Approaches, p. 90)
Culture. The American cultural anthropologist Clifford Geertz exerted a great influence on new
historicism. In The Interpretation of Cultures (1973) he defines culture as: A set of control mechanisms
plans, recipes, rules, instructions (what computer engineers call programs) for the governing of behaviour
... man is precisely the animal most desperately dependent upon such extragenetic, outside-the-skin control
mechanisms, such cultural programs, for ordering his behavior. (Critical Approaches, p. 85)
Deconstruction. Jacques Derrida opposes the metaphysical and logocentric view by
deconstructing the fictional and ideological binary oppositions, that is, by showing how there is not a clear
differentiation between both halves of a polarity. The deconstructive analysis of such pairs will consider their
constituents not as being antithetical but, on the contrary, as sharing similar features. By such a dismantling
of social binaries, Deconstruction can be considered as a social and political practice that breaks up the
foundation of ideological systems that favour a certain set of values while bringing others down. Derrida
applies his philosophical views to textual analysis by using as his main critical tool deconstructive readings as
opposed to structuralist methods. Structuralist analysis views the text as a structured system organised in
binary oppositions such as Culture versus Nature, Order versus Disorder or Man versus Woman. The
methodical structuralist analysis systematises the text in ordered structures of meaning and renders it a
bearer of a stable and fixed signification. As a poststructuralist critical theory, Deconstruction questions and
reacts against structuralist analysis by opposing and dismantling the idea of structure and the concept of
steady meaning in a text. (Critical Approaches, p. 76)
Diffrance. The French philosopher Jacques Derrida questions structuralism after exploring the
implications of Saussures idea of linguistic difference. Derrida uses the term diffrance in order to explain
his ideas on language. Diffrance is an ambiguous term. It derives from the French diffrer which means
both to defer, postpone, delay, alluding to the nature of meaning, and to differ, be different from, hinting at
the nature of signs, and the nature of the signifiers. The duplicity of meaning of the term diffrance refers to
the necessary connections among the units of language in a text and at the same time their distinctive nature.
That is, the meaning of an element in a text depends on its correlation with other elements prior and
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subsequent to it and its existence depends on its being distinct from these other elements. (Critical
Approaches, p. 72)
Discourse. According to Althussers theory, human subjects are all modelled by ideology, which is
the result of the immense social influence of what he calls Ideological State Apparatuses (ISA). Every ISA
makes use of a very specific ideological discourse, that is, it selects a certain set of ideas which are
expressed through a carefully selected language aimed to serve the purposes of the dominant classes and
maintain the status quo. Consequently, though we have the illusion that we have been free to choose our
ideas and values, the fact is that they have all been imposed on us since we were born. What we consider as
natural on most occasions is just culturally constructed by discourse, by language.
Editorial criticism. The eighteenth century is the age of the major editions of Shakespeares
complete works. The main editors of the century were the founders of Shakespeare textual criticism. Even
now we can see their names mentioned in annotated editions of Shakespeares plays. Their work consisted
of organizing the playwrights texts by establishing what words were actually Shakespeares and by finding
out textual mistakes and how these could have been made. When a play was being printed, compositors
were writing from manuscripts that were difficult to understand. They could have been reading the copy very
rapidly and a word might have slipped in. Sometimes they could have also misread the punctuation. The
editor had to detect those mistakes in the texts. Act and scene division also derive from the early editions
since, in the Quartos and the Folios, some acts are not divided into scenes. Additionally, sometimes the editor
had to decide who said certain lines in the play since some of them appeared erroneously assigned. The
same was the case with the stage directions. (Critical Approaches, p. 26)
Essentialist humanism. The idea that all human beings throughout history share a common, inborn
and universal human nature or essence. (Critical Approaches, p. 85)
First-wave feminism. Pre-1960s first wave feminist criticism was highly stimulated in America and
Britain by The Womens Rights and Womens Suffrage movements. First wave feminism was mainly
interested in egalitarian social relations and, more specifically, in womens social and political benefits as
individuals and also as a collectivity. Their main concerns evolved around womens legal status such as their
right to vote, family allowances, contraception, abortion or welfare rights. They also campaigned for womens
access to all kinds of professions and to higher education, that is to public life. They strove to change unjust
social conditions by addressing the State since many of them thought institutions had the power to end social
inequalities by allowing women to show their potentials as citizens. Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) and Simone
de Beauvoir (1908-1986) were the two leading figures writing about womens rights during this period.
(Critical Approaches, p. 97)
Great Chain of Being. It was the vertical picture of the world according to the Elizabethan
conception about the nature of the universe. The universe was portrayed as hierarchical. Creation appeared
metaphorically as a chain where everything inanimate, animate, vegetative, sensitive, rational and angelic
had its own place and function. As Tillyard remarks, the chain stretched from the foot of Gods throne to the
meanest of inanimate objects. Every speck of creation was a link in the chain, and every link except those at
the two extremities was simultaneously bigger and smaller than another: there could be no gap. (Critical
Approaches, p. 49)
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opposed to Saussures notion that language produces reality and does not reflect it. Derrida considers as
logocentric those forms of thought whose beliefs and modes of behaviour are ruled by some external point
of reference. Using linguistic terms, Derrida metaphorically sees these types of society as languages whose
diverse elements are in search of a transcendental, a final signified, namely God, Truth, the Idea, the Self,
etc., to which all signifiers are referring. This transcendental signified is considered as The Meaning, The
Sign around which the whole structure of that language, of that system of thought, of that society, is
organised. (Critical Approaches, p. 75)
Metatheatricality. The word metatheatre comes from the Greek prefix meta, which implies a level
beyond the subject that it qualifies; metatheatricality is generally agreed to be a device whereby a play
comments on itself, drawing attention to the literal circumstances of its own production, such as the presence
of the audience or the fact that the actors are actors, and/or the making explicit of the literary artifice behind
the production. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metatheatre (See Critical Approaches, p. 224)
Neo-classical criticism. The seventeenth century does not offer many critical writings on
Shakespeares works. However, it is necessary to know the critical stance of authors and critics such as Ben
Jonson (1572/3-1637), John Dryden (1631-1700) or Thomas Rymer (1641-1713), since they constitute the
critical basis from which the more prolific eighteenth-century Shakespearean criticism would arise. These
critics abide by neo-classical norms against which drama is measured during that century. Neo-classicism
revered the classics and the tradition and put value on literary rules, conventions and decorum. These critics
describe the prescriptions of what poetry should be by implementing Aristotelian and Horatian dramatic rules.
(Critical Approaches, p. 21)
New Criticism. New criticism was a critical theory developed by a group of American critics. It was
very influential from the 40s to the 60s. This approach can be classified as Formalist since it concentrated on
the analysis of the form and structure of the work, that is, the organisation of its meaning. The new critics put
emphasis on the text, which was considered an autonomous entity. The text was analysed in isolation since
they believed historical or social contexts were irrelevant to its meaning. The meaning, for the new critics, is
within the text itself. (Critical Approaches, p. 52)
New Historicism. By the early 1980s, new historicism, also known as the return of history, emerged
as a poststructuralist approach that introduced a ground-breaking system of historical analysis of
Renaissance literary texts. American new historicists such as Stephen Greenblatt, Louis Montrose, Jonathan
Goldberg, Stephen Orgel or Leonard Tennenhouse, and British new historicists, also known as cultural
materialists, such as Jonathan Dollimore, Alan Sinfield, Catherine Belsey, Francis Barker or Raymond
Williams, among many others, opposed the historical analysis developed by Tillyard in the 1940s. (Critical
Approaches, p. 80)
Poetics. In some ways, literary structuralism could resemble the formalist methods of new criticism
and its rejection of the so-called intentional and affective fallacies. However, we have to bear in mind that
whereas new critics intend to find an organic unity, a coherence, a central and single meaning in a text,
structuralists disregard the referential dimension and centre on the analysis of the relationship between
signifiers, while rejecting the search for a final and unifying signified or meaning that could relate the text to an
external reality. For the structuralists, a literary text is viewed as a closed system of signs organised and
structured like language. One of the main aims of structuralists is to bring to light the underlying set of rules
that presides over all works of literature. Such a set of rules is viewed as a general science of literature called
poetics and is based on the Saussurean delineation between langue and parole. Structuralists regard
every literary work as an example of parole or individual use of language that holds the underlying and
constant rules and structures that belong to a general grammar of literature or general literary langue. The
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structuralists purpose is to analyse the way in which such rules take shape in every single literary work.
(Critical Approaches, p. 67)
Poetics of culture. Deeply influenced by Foucault, in Shakespearean Negotiations (1988), Stephen
Greenblatt, founding figure of new historicism, defines the text, and more specifically the Renaissance play,
not as the central, stable locus of theatrical meaning, but as the site of institutional and ideological
contestation. Greenblatt views the plays as historical monuments. That is, the plays hold a series of
collective beliefs inherent to different discursive practices that are all interconnected and dependent on each
other and participate in the construction of the ideology of a certain social formation. The aim of the critic is to
uncover such relations. Such an interpretative practice is defined by Greenblatt as a poetics of culture.
(Critical Approaches, p. 82)
Postcolonialism. By legitimating invasion and exploitation of inhabited lands, colonialism works
through a set of social, economic, political, cultural or religious mechanisms of control. These mechanisms
work over colonised citizens considered as inferior and different from ruling colonisers who regard inequality
as the basis of the social structure of the colony. Postcolonialism works as a response to colonialism and also
to any form of human exploitation and domination. It has been an important field of study since the 1970s,
especially since the publication of Edward Saids Orientalism in 1978. Postcolonial Studies, which were
consolidated by Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffins The Empire Writes Back: Theory and
Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures (1989), constitute a powerful intellectual and critical movement, which
centres on the relationship between European colonisers and the colonised societies in the modern age.
They are usually known to oppose imperialism and Euro-centrism and they refer both to the periods before
and after the independence of the colonies. (Critical Approaches, p. 158)
Poststructuralism. Poststructuralism is a system of thought that questions certain key concepts of
structuralism such as sign or structure. The internal functioning of language is once more the pattern
poststructuralists use in order to analyse the organisation of texts. But this time language is no longer
considered as a stable and enclosed structure of meaning, as Saussure pointed out. Language is now viewed
as a locus without a centre, without a fixed meaning; meaning is always deferred, always absent. (Critical
Approaches, p. 72)
Power. In History of Sexuality I (1976), Foucault states that power comes not from what he calls the
primary existence of a central point, in a unique source of sovereignty from which secondary and descendent
forms would emanate. Foucault redefines the traditional idea of power by alluding to the microphysics of
power. The main implication of such a view is that power is not just located in dominating institutions such as
the family, the school, the church, the court or the mass media that help to construct the ruling ideology of
each social formation. Since power is everywhere, it is also located in the transgressive and subversive
forces of society that are repressed, excluded and silenced. (Critical Approaches, p. 87)
Quasi-structuralism. According to Terence Hawkes in Shakespeare and New Critical Approaches
(1986): There does exist a bulk of anti-Bradleian Anglo-American criticism which might reasonably be called
quasi-structuralist: that is, its commitment lies wholly against Bradleian realism and very much in favour of a
view of the plays as structures deploying depersonalised themes in which opposed concepts (such as
appearance and reality, disorder and order, death and life) present a moral or political scheme in general
rather than particular psychological terms. The quasi-structuralists Hawkes is referring to are critics such as
L. C. Knights or G. Wilson Knight. The works of these two critics are just viewed as an anticipation of the pure
structuralist analysis in so far as they reject authorial intention and psychological realism. They both consider
that authority lies in the text. (Critical Approaches, p. 68)
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