Shakespeare: The Poetry
F06
April Bernard
In addition to Shakespeare’s “Sonnets,” “Venus and Adonis,” and “The Rape of Lucrece,” we will read and ponder the many songs and distinct lyrics that appear throughout the plays. We will also read extensively from the body of the plays, making sense of the flexible miracle that is Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter, and selectively reading from many of his contemporaries to fix on the nature of his distinct poetic style. We will memorize poems, write poems and imitations, and there will be three critical papers.