English 493/491/591, Senior Seminar or Special Topics
(2760/2740/2785)
Hamlet in Criticism and Culture
TuTh 2:00-3:20, PSY 240
Instructor: William E. Sheidley
Office: PSY 171 Phone: 549-2886 Hours: TTh 11:00-11:30, 2:00-2:30, W 10-10:30 and by appt.
E-Mail: bill.sheidley@colostate-pueblo.edu Home phone: (719) 548-9878 (please
don’t call after 8 p.m.)
Texts: Many of the readings for this seminar are out of
print. Copies will be placed on reserve
and often photocopies will be provided.
The books listed below are available at the bookstore. Everyone should purchase Hoy, Stoppard, and
Updike; Barnet and Wofford are optional, and fewer copies have been
ordered. It will be convenient for you
to buy them as well, if possible. You
will be asked to read a number of papers by the instructor. I hope they will provide some guidance
through the many and varied works we’ll study, and I also hope that by
providing you with my take on the subject matter in written form I’ll be able
to clear a space for you to present and discuss your own ideas. Please understand that you have no more
obligation to agree with my interpretations than you have to agree with those
of other writers we’ll encounter, and I won’t hold it against you if you do.
Barnet, Sylvan, ed.
Hamlet. By William Shakespeare.
Newly Revised Edition. New York:
Signet Classic, 1998.
Hoy, Cyrus, ed. Hamlet. By William Shakespeare. 2nd
ed. Norton Critical Edition. New York: Norton, 1992.
Stoppard, Tom. Rosencrantz
& Guildenstern Are Dead. New
York: Grove, 1967.
Updike, John. Gertrude and
Claudius. New York: Ballantyne,
2001.
Wofford, Susanne L., ed. Hamlet. By William Shakespeare.
Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism/ Boston: Bedford, 1994.
Overview: No
play of Shakespeare has so attracted and perplexed subsequent generations as Hamlet. As E. K. Chambers wrote, “Hamlet fascinates
us . . . because we see in him ourselves; we are all actual or potential
Hamlets.” But self-identification with
Hamlet may be uncomfortable, as it was to the post-modern dramatist Charles
Marowitz, who protested, “I despise Hamlet.
He is a slob, / A talker, and analyser, a rationalizer. / . . . You may
think he’s a sensitive, well-spoken fellow, but, frankly, he gives me a pain in
the ass.” Like scores of other
playwrights, poets, and fiction-writers, however (not to mention critics,
moralists, and psychiatrists), Marowitz could not let Hamlet alone but wrote
and produced his own version of the play.
In this seminar we will study the nature of Hamlet’s curious appeal and
explore the various ways the story has represented and transformed when seen
from many cultural perspectives. After
rereading and analyzing the Shakespearean text(s), we’ll take an overview of
the play’s critical and stage history; explore the roots of the Hamlet story in
myth, legendary history, and folktale; examine some of the story’s many
analogues; and then sample the long post-Shakespearean history of adaptations,
alterations, parodies, spinoffs, and critical redactions of the Hamlet story
from the seventeenth century to the present.
Goals:
Students will develop their own particular perspective on all this material,
drawing on the knowledge-base they have developed over their careers as English
majors, and present their views to the class in formal and informal ways. Through their oral and written performances,
students will demonstrate advanced levels of disciplinary expertise as readers,
researchers, critics, and theorists of literature and culture.
Requirements:
Everyone is expected to read the works assigned in the schedule below by the
date specified and to be ready to discuss them in class. In addition, each student will write three
informal two-page papers on works to be specified and present ideas developed
in those papers orally in class to get discussion started. The term-paper project on a topic of each
student’s choosing as approved by the instructor will involve research in
primary and secondary sources (to be described in an annotated bibliography)
and issue in an 8-12 page essay due near the end of the semester. Students taking the course at the graduate
level will write a 10-15 page essay with a broader research base. Due dates for aspects of the term-paper
project are scheduled throughout the semester, and informal progress reports
will be called for in class. A midterm
and a final exam will complete the work for the seminar. In determining the final grade for the
course, these elements will be weighted as follows:
Class
participation: 15%
Two-pagers
as a group: 15%
Annotated
bibliography: 10%
Midterm
exam: 15%
Term
paper: 30%
Final
exam: 15%
Grading: Grades will be assigned using a
fractionated (plus/minus) system where the grade of A is equivalent to 93-100,
A- to 90-92, B+ to 87-89, etc. A final
grade of A will earn 4.0 points, A- 3.67, B+ 3.33, etc.
Accommodations:
This university abides by the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504
of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973,
which stipulates that no student shall be denied the benefits of an education
“solely by reason of a handicap.” If
you have a documented disability that may impact your work in this class and
for which you may require accommodations, please see the instructor as soon as
possible to arrange accommodations. In
order to receive accommodations, you must be registered with and provide
documentation of your disability to: the Disability Resource Office, which is
located in the Psychology Building, Suite 232.
Term Paper Project: Choose a focused topic that draws on your particular interests,
knowledge, and skills. If you have a
favorite genre, literary period, author, or contextual field (historical,
philosophical, cultural) that can be connected with the Hamlet tradition, you
could take that as a point of departure.
You could focus on any one of the texts and/or authors we study (except
Shakespeare and Shakespeare’s Hamlet), or you could develop a
comparative study of related works.
Look over the syllabus to get an idea of what’s available. You could also study texts within the Hamlet
tradition that are not assigned in this course. There are plenty of them, and I can suggest a number. You could study representations of specific
characters and scenes through the tradition (Ophelia offers rich possibilities,
for example). If you are interested in
film, there are plenty of recent film versions of Hamlet worth
exploring. If you are interested in
literature for young people, you could study adaptations of Hamlet for children. You could also focus on Hamlet
criticism, studying the work of a specific major critic or examining how
various critics have treated some aspect of the play. If you are interested in theater, you could explore important
productions of Hamlet and/or related texts (there are plenty of
secondary sources and reviews to base your work on). The overviews of the stage history and critical history of Hamlet
we read at the beginning of the semester will help you survey these territories
and start to find a focus. Please meet
with me individually early in the term to talk about the possibilities and your
plans. Observe the following schedule:
Term Project Schedule
9/18 By this date you should have met with me to
discuss possible topics. Submit a paragraph
giving the subject you intend to focus on and the reasons why you chose it.
9/30 Submit a preliminary research bibliography
of at least 10 items that you have located through your research. You need not have read them yet. Prepare the bibliography in standard MLA
Works Cited format. Consult with me if
you have trouble finding texts. Your
items should include primary and secondary sources.
10/28 Submit an annotated bibliography of at least
five of your sources that you have now read.
Your annotations should be approximately 100-150 words long and indicate
the content of each source and what use you expect to make of it in your essay.
11/18 Submit your essay in finished form.
12/4 Submit a revised version of your essay,
incorporating any suggestions you received on the version previously submitted,
as well as improvements of your own.
Schedule of Assignments
1. Tu 8-26 Preview
Course overview; questionnaire
on Hamlet, assignment of two-pagers.
2. Th 8-28 Shakespeare’s
Hamlet
Read: Cyrus Hoy, “Preface” and
“Textual Commentary,” Hoy vii-xiii; 102-4; Sylvan Barnet, “Introduction” and “A
Note on the Texts of Hamlet,” Barnet lxiii-xcii, 145-61; and William
Shakespeare, Hamlet, Acts I and II, Hoy 1-43.
3. Tu 9-2 Shakespeare’s
Hamlet Concluded; Is Hamlet a Universal Text?
Read: Shakespeare, Hamlet,
Acts III, IV, and V, Hoy 43-101; and Laura Bohannan, “Shakespeare in the Bush.”
Two-pagers
on Bohannan due.
4. Th 9-4 Overview
of Shakespeare’s Hamlet through the Ages
Read: Susanne Wofford, “A Critical
History of Hamlet,” Wofford 181-207; Sylvan Barnet, “Hamlet on Stage and
Screen,” Barnet, 239-56.
5. Tu 9-9 Where
Did Hamlet Come From? The
Pre-Shakespearean Tradition
Read: Sylvan Barnet, “A Note on the
Sources of Hamlet,” Barnet 167-70; Saxo Grammaticus, excerpts from his
account of Amleth, Hoy 127-33 (if possible, read the complete excerpt in Narrative and Dramatic Sources of
Shakespeare, ed.Bullough, &: 60-79; François de Belleforest, excerpts from The Hystorie of
Hamblet, Prince of Denmarke, Hoy 134-43 (or see the complete text in
Bullough, 7: 81-124; selection from The Romane Historie by Titus Livius,
trans. Philemon Holland (1600) on Lucius Junius Brutus in Bullough, 7: 80-81
and/or the modern translation in Livy, History of Early Rome, 88-95; and
William E. Sheidley, “Hamlets and Hierarchy,” Peace Review 11.2 (1999):
243-49, esp. pp 243-45 (the rest of the article treats texts we’ll study later
in the course).
Two-pagers
on Saxo and/or Belleforest due.
6. Th 9-11 Hamlet
Analogues
Read: “The Story of Brjám” and Chapters 1-25 (pp. 1-99)
of Hamlet the Fool; The Icelandic Saga of Ambales or “Amlothi Heimski,”
both taken from Israel Gollancz, Hamlet in Iceland (London: David Nutt,
1898).
7. Tu 9-16 Hamlet
Analogues Continued: Ambales Saga, Orestes, and Apostolo Zeno, Hamlet:
An Opera (1712)
Read:
Remainder of Ambales Saga (pp. 99-191); Apostolo Zeno, Hamlet: An
Opera (just take a look at this); and William E. Sheidley, “Hamlet the
European and the Idea of Europe.”
Two-pagers on Ambales
due.
8. Th 9-18 The
Post-Shakespearean Evolution (or Devolution) of the Play: Fratricide
Punished.
Read: Introduction, The Tragedy
of Fratricide Punished or Prince Hamlet of Denmark, and Commentary, i.e.,
Chapter 6 of Shakespeare in Germany 1590-1700, by Ernest Brennecke
(Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1964), 246-95.
Two-pagers on Fratricide Punished due.
Submit a paragraph defining
your term-project topic and stating why you chose it.
9. Tu 9-23 Enlightenment
Views of Hamlet
Read: (Review) Sylvan Barnet’s
account of the late-seventeenth-century stage version of Hamlet, Barnet
240-41; John Dryden, “The Blown Puffy Style,” from his Preface, “Containing the
Grounds of Criticism in Tragedy,” to Troilus and Cressida (1679); and
excerpts from criticism by John Dennis, Anonymous (Thomas Hanmer?), and Samuel
Johnson, Hoy 147-49.
10. Th 9-25 Gamlet (sic) in Eighteenth-Century
Russia
Read: Translators; Note,
Introduction, and Hamlet, A Tragedy in Selected Tragedies of A. P.
Sumarokov, trans. Richard and Raymond Fortune, intr. by John Fizer
(Evanston: Northwestern U P, 1970), xi-xiii, 3-39, 87-134.
Two-pagers
on Sumarokov due.
11. Tu 9-30 Hamlet in the Age of Sensibility
Read:
William E. Sheidley, “Making Hamlet Pirouette: Louis Henry’s Hamlet:
Pantomime Tragique of 1816" and Louis Henry, Hamlet, Tragic
Pantomime in three Acts, trans. Sheidley, Hamlet Studies 15 (1993):
54-80; and excerpts from criticism by William Richardson, Henry Mackenzie, and
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Hoy 149-54.
Two-pagers
on Louis Henry’s ballet libretto due.
Submit your preliminary
research bibliography for the term project.
12. Th 10-2 The Romantic Hamlet and “Hamletism”
Read:
Excerpts from criticism by Augustus William Schlegel, Samuel Taylor Coleridge
(“The Character of Hamlet” only) and William Hazlitt, Hoy 155-57, 163-69; Edgar
Allan Poe, Review of “The Characters of Shakespeare,” by William Hazlitt; and
selections from R. A. Foakes, “Hamlet and Hamletism”, Chapter 2 of his Hamlet
versus Lear: Cultural Politics and Shakespeare’s Art (Cambridge: Cambridge
U P, 1993), pp 12-36.
13. Tu 10-7 Examples of Hamletism
Read: Ferdinand Freiligrath, “Yes,
Germany is Hamlet! Lo!”; Ivan Turgenev, “Hamlet of the Shchigrovsky District,” Sketches
from a Hunter’s Album, trans. Richard Freeborn (Harmondsworth, Middlesex:
Penguin, 1967), 179-209; and William E. Sheidley, “‘Born in Imitation of
Someone Else’: Reading Turgenev’s ‘Hamlet of the Shchigrovsky District’ as a
Version of Hamlet,” Studies in Short Fiction 27.3 (Summer 1990):
391-98.
Two-pagers on Turgenev’s story
due.
14. Th 10-9 Hamlet as Decadent Artiste: Jules
Laforgue
Read: Introduction (entitled “The
Moral Tales”) and “Hamlet or the Consequences of Filial Piety,” from Selected
Writings of Jules Laforgue, ed. and trans. William Jay Smith (New York:
Grove, 1956), 101-37.
Two-pagers on Laforgue’s story
due.
15. Tu
10-14 Midterm Exam
16. Th
10-16 The Middle Class Strikes Back:
Some Hamlet Parodies and Burlesques
Read:
Excerpt from Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens (1860-1861), “[Pip
sees Mr. Wopsle as Hamlet]”; G. W. H. Griffin, Hamlet the Dainty, An
Ethiopian Burlesque on Shakespeare’s Hamlet (New York: Samuel French, [ca.
1870]); W. S. Gilbert, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (1874); Chapter XXI
of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain (1884); and C. P.
Cavafy, “King Claudius” (1899).
Two-pagers
on any or all of these texts due.
17. Tu
10-21 Parodies and Burlesques Continued
Read:
Hope H. Moulton, Hamlet: A Burlesque in One Act (Boston: Walter H.
Baker, 1927); Michael Innes, “The Mysterious Affair at Elsinore: A New
Investigation” (1949); and William E. Sheidley, “Anti-Hamlets: Motive
and Meaning in a Radical Parodic Mode,” Hamlet Studies 25 (2003):
200-33.
Two-pagers on Moulton and/or Innes due.
18. Th
10-23 Psychoanalyzing Hamlet
Read: (Review) Susanne Wofford, “A
Critical History of Hamlet,” Wofford, esp. pp. 187-95; excerpts from
criticism by A. C. Bradley, T. S. Eliot, and Ernest Jones, Hoy 169-75, 180-84,
and 200-7; and (review) Sylvan Barnet, “Hamlet on Stage and Screen,”
Barnet, esp. pp. 251-53. If you have an
opportunity to view Laurence Olivier’s film of Hamlet (1948), please do
so.
Two-pagers
on the Oedipal reading of Hamlet and/or Olivier’s film due.
19. Tu 10-28
The Oedipal Hamlet in 1950's
California
Read: Elmer Rice, Cue for Passion:
A Play in Five Scenes [performed 1958] (New York: Dramatists Play
Service, 1959.
Two-pagers
on Rice’s play due.
Submit your annotated
bibliography.
20. Th
10-30 The Darker Vision:
Mortality and Cynicism
Read:
Excerpts from criticism by G. Wilson Knight and C. S. Lewis, Hoy 184-91 and
196-200; and Philip Freund, Prince Hamlet (New York: Bookman, 1953).
Two-pagers
on Freund’s play due.
21. Tu 11-4 Hamlet and 20th-Century History
Read:
William E. Sheidley, “Hamlet Endures the Twentieth Century”; and Archibald
MacLeish, The Hamlet of A. MacLeish (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1928).
Two-pagers on MacLeish due.
22. Th 11-6 Hamlet and 20th-Century
History Continued
Read: Charles Marowitz, Introduction
and Hamlet, in Marowitz, The Marowitz Shakespeare (New York:
Drama Book Specialists, 1978), pp. 7-69; (Review) William E. Sheidley, “Hamlet
the European and the Idea of Europe”; and Heiner Müller, Hamletmachine, in
Müller, Hamletmachine and
Other Texts for the Stage, ed. and trans. Carl Weber (New York: Performing
Arts Journal Publications, 1984), pp. 49-58.
Two-pagers on Marowitz and/or Müller’s plays due.
23. Tu 11-11 Counter-Culture Hamlets
Read: Joseph Papp, William
Shakespeare’s “Naked” Hamlet: A Production Handbook (London: Macmillan,
1969); and Richard Curtis, “The Skinhead Hamlet,” from Not 1982.
Two-pagers on Papp’s production
due.
24. Th
11-13 Hamlet through the Lens of Modern
Philosophy: Tom Stoppard’s Versions
Read: Tom Stoppard, Preface and
“Dogg’s Hamlet” (1971) from Stoppard, Dogg’s Hamlet, Cahoot’s Macbeth
(London: Faber and Faber, 1979). pp. 7-42; and Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz
& Guildenstern Are Dead (New York: Grove, 1967) — at least the first
half of it.
Two-pagers on “Dogg’s Hamlet”
due.
25. Tu
11-18 Further Discussion of Stoppard
Read:
Finish Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead; William E. Sheidley, “The
Play(s) within the Film: Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are
Dead,” Screen
Shakespeare, ed. Michael Skovmand (Aarhus,
Denmark: Aarhus U P, 1994), pp. 99-112.
If you can find a copy and have the time, watch the film as well.
Two-pagers on Stoppard’s play
and/or film due.
Submit your term paper in
finished form.
26. Th
11-20 Updike’s Prequel
Read:
John Updike, Gertrude and Claudius (2000), Parts I and II, pp.
3-162; and Henry D. Janowitz, “‘Master Eustace’ and Gertrude and Claudius:
Henry James and John Updike Rewrite Hamlet,” Hamlet Studies 25
(2003): 189-99.
THANKSGIVING BREAK
27. Tu 12-2 Updike versus Bloom: Opposing Views of
Hamlet at the Millennium
Read: Finish Updike, Gertrude and
Claudius, pp.163-212; and Harold Bloom, selections from Shakespeare: The
Invention of the Human (New York: Riverhead Books, 1998): “To the Reader,”
pp.xix-xxii; “Shakespeare’s Universalism,” pp. 1-17; and “Hamlet,” pp. 383-431.
Two-pagers on Updike’s novel
due.
28. Th
12-4 Retrospect and Course Review
Read: William E. Sheidley, “Other
Hamlets — Hamlet Others: Reconstructing the Self-Deconstructing Insider-Outsider
Opposition.”
Come armed with questions to
prepare for the final exam.
Submit a revised version of
your term paper.
Final Exam,
Fri., 12-12, 1:00-3:20 p.m., in the regular classroom.