This module is not currently running in 2024 to 2025.
This module engages with the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries as texts for performance; approached through a variety of critical, theoretical and practical methods. It considers the theatrical, cultural and historical conditions that produced and shaped them; examines the role played by the drama in a violent, volatile and rapidly-changing society; investigates and applies the principles of early modern playing spaces and performance practices, and considers the variety of ways in which these works have been encountered and reinvented in the modern period.
Total contact hours: 48
Private study hours: 252
Total study hours: 300
Main assessment methods:
Written Assignment/Editing task (3000 words) (50%)
Performance (50%).
Reassessment methods:
Like for Like
Indicative Reading List:
Braunmuller, A. R. and M. Hattaway, eds. The Cambridge Companion to English Renaissance
Drama. CUP, 1990.
Greenblatt, S. Will in the World. Pimlico, 2005.
Gurr, A. The Shakespearean Stage. CUP, 1992.
Shaughnessy, R. The Routledge Guide to William Shakespeare. Routledge, 2011.
White, M. Renaissance Drama in Action. Routledge, 1998.
See the library reading list for this module (Canterbury)
The intended subject specific learning outcomes.
On successfully completing the module students will be able to:
1 demonstrate a knowledge and understanding of the theatre and performance cultures of early modern England;
2 articulate an understanding of the relationship between the theatre and drama and of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries and the institutional, cultural, and social contexts in which it was produced;
3 demonstrate a specific understanding of the work and significance of key practitioners from the period, including playwrights, and performers;
4 undertake analyses of performance texts informed by script, production, critical response and context;
5 demonstrate research skills in using secondary and, where available and appropriate, primary materials.
The intended generic learning outcomes.
On successfully completing the module students will be able to:
1 demonstrate skills in self-management and independent working;
2 demonstrate skills in teamwork, project management and problem solving;
3 demonstrate communication and presentational skills, both in debate and discussion, in presentation and in writing.
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