In addition to making students comfortable with the language and characters of Shakespeare's plays, this course aims to familiarize students with various historical materials as well. Contexts for the plays discussed include the nature and structure of the Jacobean theatres, the court masque, public vs. private theatres, shifts in the tone and subject matter of plays between the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods, King James as a patron of the theatre, the ideology of kingship under King James, political controversies in Jacobean England alluded to by the plays, and Shakespeare and the origins of the English revolution. Writing About Music. Writing about music for newspaper and periodical publications. Music criticism, record reviews, and feature articles are studied and discussed.
Students prepare articles for evaluation and possible publication.
Guest instructors present lectures on special topics. Musicians in Literature. We examine diverse representations of musicians in literature from the Renaissance to the Harlem Renaissance and beyond. The course is driven by the following large questions. We read poetry and fiction in which music and musicians figure centrally, supplemented by essays on the social history of music.