Shakespeare’s First Folio (1623) - Peter Medine

Humanities Seminars Program Spring 2023
This seminar will explore the enduring relevance of Shakespeare's drama, extending from love to politics, to human fate. To mark the 400th anniversary of the First Folio, we shall study six of the plays in their genres: comedy, history, and tragedy. We shall then focus on the plays' plots, in which comedy proceeds from relative disorder to order and tragedy from relative order to disorder. Originating in the 16th century, the history play is distinguished by subject but depends on plots that conform to comic and tragic patterns. Mindful that Shakespeare was a practical man of the theatre, we shall supplement the textual discussion with scenes from DVD productions. As Shakespeare's contemporary Ben Jonson put it in the preface to the First Folio, "Shakespeare was not of an age but for all time."