Key facts

Type	Online and Distance Learning
Location	Online
Dates	Mon 23 Sep to Fri 6 Dec 2013
Subject area(s)	Literature
CATS points	10
Fees	From £220.00
Application status	Applications being accepted
Course code	O13P404LTV
Course contact	If you have any questions about this course, please email onlinecourses@conted.ox.ac.uk.

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Overview

This course focuses on five Shakespeare plays, covering a range of genres and periods of his writing. There is an emphasis on both page and stage (or film), and on enriching enjoyment and appreciation of Shakespeare’s work in the context of his own time and of ours.
Students completing this course will be invited to join our online book group.

Description

Perhaps we revere Shakespeare more than we enjoy him. This course aims to redress that imbalance. We shall spend time getting to know a range of Shakespeare’s plays in detail, supplementing this knowledge with information about their historical background, their theatrical history, and current critical debates. If you associate Shakespeare with the dull grind of school, prepare to think again! The course will inform and stimulate your personal response to plays whether you already know the or are encountering them for the first time. Discussing Shakespeare’s work can lead off in so many different directions: into psychology, history, theatre, autobiography... so the course promises a wide-ranging, and enjoyable, intellectual experience.

Programme details

1. Getting started: Macbeth
2. Macbeth in the Jacobean context and now
3. Twelfth Night: ideas of comedy then and now
4. Twelfth Night: gender and sexuality
5. Henry V: Elizabethan context and now
6. Henry V: Shakespeare’s use of sources
7. Measure for Measure: what is a problem play?
8. Measure for Measure: law, justice, and morality
9. The Winter’s Tale: late style and tragi-comedy
10. The Winter’s Tale on the modern stage

We strongly recommend that you try to find a little time each week to engage in the online conversations (at times that are convenient to you) as the forums are an integral, and very rewarding, part of the course and the online learning experience.

Course aims

This course will enable students to:
Develop their knowledge, understanding, and enjoyment of Shakespeare’s plays
Develop new critical skills with which to approach Shakespeare on page and stage – and, by extension, skills of literary criticism and appreciation applicable more generally
Discuss and debate their ideas with other participants and with the critical tradition
Feel more confident in going to see an unfamiliar Shakespeare play
Revisit school or other previous experiences of learning Shakespeare and see how the field has changed

Certification

This course is accredited and you are expected to take the course for credit. To be awarded credit you must complete written contributions satisfactorily. Successful students will receive credit, awarded by the Board of Studies of Oxford University Department for Continuing Education. The award will take the form of 10 units of transferable credit at FHEQ level 4 of the Credit Accumulation and Transfer Scheme (CATS). A transcript detailing the credit will be issued to successful students.

Assessment methods

Assessment for this course is through two written pieces.

Level and demands

FHEQ level 4, 10 weeks, approx 10 hours per week, therefore a total of about 100 study hours.

Recommended reading

To participate in the course you will need to have regular access to the Internet and you will need to buy the following paperback books:
Shakespeare, William, The Norton Shakespeare (W.W. Norton, 1997)or The Royal Shakespeare Company Shakespeare (Macmillan, 2007). We recommend either of these editions because they have useful notes, but other editions are also fine.

You also need to purchase:
Smith, Emma, The Cambridge Introduction to Shakespeare. (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2007).

Teaching outcomes

By the end of this course students can expect:
To understand the plays studied in different critical contexts, including historical, theoretical, and theatrical
To have challenged their own ideas and come to new understandings of the material
To feel confidence in their ability to understand and appreciate Shakespeare

By the end of this course studentss will have gained the following skills:
Enhanced ability to read Shakespeare’s plays
An ability to recognize and deploy different critical methodologies and to understand something of the range of Shakespeare studies
Enhanced ability to understand their own critical/theoretical stance as readers and theatre goers
Enhanced ability to reassess their own views in the light of different opinions

Fee options

Programme Fee

Home/EU Fee: £220.00

Non-EU Fee: £295.00

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