Admission requirements
Successful completion of Literature 1A, 1B, 2 and 3 or 4, or equivalent.
Description
Memory is almost everywhere in Shakespeare. Hamlet is centrally preoccupied with the question of how to remember the dead; the history plays examine the politics of historical memory; the Roman plays explore the idea of ‘remembering’ ancient Rome, with the theatre functioning as a kind of ‘memory machine’; the relations between memory and desire form a recurring theme in the sonnets. This course, students will analyse the issue of memory in a cross-section of Shakespeare’s work: Hamlet, 1 & 2 Henry IV, Henry V, Titus Andronicus, The Winter’s Tale, Twelfth Night, the sonnets (selection). They will also study a selection of recent work in memory studies and Shakespeare studies.
Course objectives
By the end of the course, students will:
have gained substantial knowledge of the various ways in which Shakespeare’s work explores the issue of memory;
have familiarized themselves with recent work in memory studies and in Shakespeare studies;
be able to draw creatively and critically on this work in their own literary analysis.
have further extended and deepened their powers of literary analysis through in-depth reading of texts;
have further honed their ability to engage in informed academic debate about literary texts and about broader issues such as memory;
have further honed their research and academic writing skills.
Timetable
The timetables are available through My Timetable.
Mode of instruction
Seminars
Assessment method
Assessment
2500-word essay (excluding quotations)
End-of-term take-home exam
Weighing
2500-word essay (excluding quotations) (40% of your final grade)
End-of-term take-home exam (60% of your final grade)
To pass the course, students should obtain at least a 6.0 for their essay.
Resit
If the final grade is insufficient, students can revise and resubmit their essay and/or retake the take-home exam.
Inspection and feedback
How and when an exam review will take place will be disclosed together with the publication of the exam results at the latest. If a student requests a review within 30 days after publication of the exam results, an exam review will have to be organized.
Reading list
Jonathan Bate & Eric Rasmussen (eds.), The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. ISBN 9780230200951.
Students are required to purchase this edition of Shakespeare’s plays. No other editions are allowed.
Further reading material to be downloaded via the Leiden University Library online catalogue.
Registration
Enrolment through uSis is mandatory.
General information about uSis is available on the website
Registration Studeren à la carte and Contractonderwijs
Registration Studeren à la carte
Registration Contractonderwijs
Contact
For substantive questions, contact the lecturer listed in the right information bar.
For questions about enrolment, admission, etc, contact the Student administration Arsenaal
Remarks
Students are required to purchase this edition of Shakespeare’s plays. No other editions are allowed.