Shakespeare’s plays are designed to entertain. They were written for the popular stage, and over the last four centuries they have been taken up in a variety of media for audiences all around the world. This course will investigate Shakespeare’s art in relation to the commercial theater for which he wrote and the popular culture of the modern world: film, theater, and radio, but also graphic novels, tv shows, and podcasts. As we discuss these plays and their creative reworkings, we will touch on topics ranging from the politics of voice to the performance of mind and emotion, from the ethics of revenge to the fluidity of gendered identity.

For majors who declared in Fall 2023 or later, this course fulfills one of the two lower-division requirements for the English major.