28151 - History of English Theatre (1) (2nd cycle)

Academic Year 2018/2019

  • Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
  • Campus: Bologna
  • Corso: Second cycle degree programme (LM) in Music and Theatre Studies (cod. 8837)

Course contents

This course will discuss the development of the myth of Hamlet, from its Scandinavian origins, through the three Shakespeare texts of Hamlet, to later adaptations, rewritings and film versions. It will also enquire into the centrality of Shakespeare’s tragedy within modern and postmodern cultural theory, from Nietzsche to Freud to Lacan to Derrida and beyond. The most significant critical interpretations of the play will be compared.

Readings/Bibliography

William Shakespeare, Hamlet, ed. G.R. Hibbard. Oxford: World’s Classics.

Saxo Grammaticus, The history of the Danes, Books 1-9, ed. Hilda Roderick Ellis Davidson. Woodbridge: DS Brewer

Saxo Grammaticus Gesta dei re e degli eroi danesi, a cura di Luddovica Koch e Maria Adele Cipolla. Torino: Einaudi

Snorri Sturluson, The Prose Edda: Tales from Norse Mythology, ed. Jean I. Young. Berkeley: University of California Press

Other material will be available online.

Assessment methods

Written essay and oral exam.

Office hours

See the website of Keir Douglas Elam