Shakespeare: Comedies and Romances
S06
April Bernard, Mark Wunderlich
In his comedies (Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Twelfth Night, etc.) and in his late so-called “romances” (Cymbeline, A Winter’s Tale, Pericles, and The Tempest), Shakespeare presents us with a vision of the stage as a place of transformation and delight, of cognition and recognition. In forests, islands, glades, and gardens, the characters lose and find their lives and loves—and the magic of play-acting, of stage-craft itself, is the medium of discovery. Students will read, discuss, and write three short critical papers about these plays—along the way pondering such questions as: What is Comedy? What is Farce? Why prose, and why poetry?