English 552: Graduate Renaissance
Literature II
Professor Melissa D. Aaron
Room 24 106 T 5:30-9:20
Office: 24 229
Office hours: M 2-4, T 1-4, W 1-3 (except 2/1, 2/22, and 3/8); and by appointment
Phone:869-3839
Email:maaron@csupomona.edu
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Required texts
English Renaissance Drama. Ed. Bevington.
Renaissance Drama by Women: Texts. Ed. Susan Cerasano and Marion Wynne-Davies.
Andrew Gurr. The Shakespearean Stage, 3rd edition.
Recommended. The Riverside Shakespeare.
This class, nominally a survey in English Renaissance drama,
will focus on non-Shakespearean drama. We will be studying the history, mechanics,
and conventions of the Elizabethan, and Jacobean, and Caroline public and private
theater, reading plays in a variety of genres—and calling into question
some widely-held assumptions about the English Early Modern theater, Shakespeare,
and the culture that produced them. By the end of the course, you will have
studied the drama of the era in breadth in our readings and short writing assignments
in class, in depth in a research paper, and in action, by analyzing, preparing,
and performing a scene from one of those plays in a final project.
In this term, the focus narrows to revenge, women, and often the two of them
together. Plays read may include Arden of Faversham. The Malcontent, The
Revenger’s Tragedy, The Maid’s Tragedy, Women Beware Women, The
Roaring Girl/Epicene. The Changeling, Duchess of Malfi, The White Devil, Tis
Pity She’s a Whore.
You will need access to a computer and the Internet for this course—if this will present a problem, please contact me.
Participation—20%
1 research paper—60%
One collaborative final project—performance and short paper—20%
All work handed in to me must be typed and double-spaced in ten or preferably
twelve point font. The font I'm using for this, Times New Roman, is nice and
easy to read. Please type your name, the class and section number, my name and
the date in the upper-right hand corner, and the title centered at the top of
the first page. Do not have a title page, and please, please staple your papers
together.
Since this is a graduate class, it seems appropriate to spend some time on research methodology, with an eye towards producing a scholarly paper, suitable for submission to one of the many scholarly conferences and journals in the field, many of which specialize in the work of graduate students. In order to make this a productive and instructive process, you will be writing only one paper in the course of this term, but that paper will be broken down into component and submitted multiple times. You will be required to select a topic fairly early in the quarter and submit the topic both to me and to the class at large on the discussion board. We will have a special session in the library devoted to research tools and methods. After this, you will be put into writing support teams, who will help you locate resources, critique your writing, and give you feedback. The next step will be producing a working bibliography, and narrate the process by which you attained the material. This paper will be turned in to me for my feedback and suggestions for bibliography and other routes of research. You will then work in your groups to produce a draft, which you will then revise. The final submission will be a portfolio containing all your drafts and prewriting, the final copy, and a journal or conference for which you think the paper might be suitable.
You can't participate if you're not here, obviously. Here are some reasons you don't want to be absent: More than three absences and your grade will be lowered. Six or more and you will fail the course. Extreme tardiness (more than ten minutes late) counts as an absence. I don't distinguish between excused and unexcused absences, and here's why. If you miss class, you'll miss discussion, my commentary on the texts, homework assignments, etc. In a remarkably short period of time, you'll find yourself terribly behind, and it will be next to impossible for you to catch up. The attendance policy is to help you succeed, not to punish you. If you are faced with illness or emergency, please let me know right away, and the same applies if you want questions answered or additional help. I check my email very regularly and you can also always come to my office hours.
Did you know that "plagiarism" comes from the Latin word for "kidnapper?" That's because it's theft, and the University and I will treat it that way. I don't want to go into all the dire consequences that will ensue; so don't do it. Enough said. I count the Cliff's Notes as plagiarism in all cases. Don't use them, period; they will only confuse you and irritate me. If you use someone else's ideas or words, you have to credit them. Here are two rules to help you with this: are you giving credit where credit is due? If someone wanted to find out more about the information you cited, or look up the quote, do they have enough information to do it? I would like you to use MLA documentation, and I'll show you how to do that.
Week 1: January 2nd
T: Introduction to course. For next meeting, please do the following: read The
Malcontent, Andrew Gurr, The Shakespearean Stage, and selections
from Cerasano and Wynne-Davies.
Week 2: January 9th
T: The Malcontent.
Week 3: January 16th
T: Arden of Faversham. For next week, select a topic. Bring a hard
copy to class and keep one for yourself.
Week 4: January 23rd
T Topic due. The Revenger’s Tragedy. Shakespearean pairing: Hamlet.
Week 5: January 30th
T The Maid’s Tragedy. and do preliminary paper for next time.
Week 6: February 6th
T: The Duchess of Malfi.(White Devil). Preliminary paper due.
Week 7: February 13th
T: The Roaring Girl/Epicene.
Week 8: February 20th
T Women Beware Women. First draft due. Bring copies in for professor
and for members of your group to critique.
Week 9: February 27th
T: The Changeling.
Week 10: March 6th
T: Tis Pity She’s a Whore.
Exam date. Final performance projects and collaborative papers due.
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