ENG 418 - Shakespeare: The History Plays

Semester Hours: 4

A seminar focusing on the ten “history plays” by which Shakespeare established his name early in his career. Ranging from King John to King Henry VIII, this play series offers both a chronicle of English political events and wars (domestic and overseas) as well as a poetic interpretation of the evolving tragi-comic English national identity. Students must familiarize themselves with major figures and events in early modern British history (1200-1642) to serve as contrasting background to the literary representations of Shakespeare’s imagined national development.