7203X (3158) Early Modern Comedy and its Classical
Models Tanya Pollard – Spring 2013 |
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4109 Boylan Thursday 4:30-6:10 e-mail: Tpollard@brooklyn.cuny.edu |
Office: 3108 Boylan phone: 718-951-5000 x6216 hours: Thurs 3:30-4:30, and by appointment |
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Long condemned as a second-class literary genre, both aesthetically and morally inferior to tragedy, comedy has consistently annoyed its critics by proving strikingly popular with audiences. As early modern playwrights experimented with the genreÕs possibilities, and explored strategies for legitimating its status without sacrificing its marketable pleasures, they turned to the authority and cultural prestige of classical models. This course will explore the question of what made comedy so appealing to audiences in both the classical and early modern periods. We will consider comedyÕs relationship to tragedy, tragicomedy, satire, and parody, alongside topics such as disguise, deceit, confusion, recognition, reversal, master-servant relations, money, marriage, appetite, and pleasure. Readings will include AristophanesÕ Plutus, PlautusÕs Menaechmi and Amphitryo, TerenceÕs The Eunuch, ShakespeareÕs Comedy of Errors and Twelfth Night, JonsonÕs Volpone and The Alchemist, and MiddletonÕs A Trick to Catch the Old One. Regular presentations and short papers will focus on language, close reading, and staging; a final paper will develop research, analytical, and writing skills. |
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Date |
Reading |
group |
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1 |
1-31 |
Introduction |
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2 |
2-7 |
Aristophanes, Plutus (388 BCE) |
1-1 |
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3 |
2-14 |
Plautus, Menaechmi (ca. 205-184 BCE) |
2-1 |
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4 |
2-21 |
Plautus, Amphitryo (ca. 205-184 BCE) |
3-1 |
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5 |
2-28 |
Terence, The Eunuch (161 BCE) |
4-1 |
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6 |
3-7 |
Shakespeare, Comedy of Errors (ca. 1594), 1-3 |
1-2 |
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7 |
3-14 |
Comedy of Errors, 4-5; Shakespeare, Twelfth Night (ca. 1600), 1-2 |
2-2 |
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8 |
3-21 |
Twelfth Night, 4-5 |
3-2 |
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9 |
3-28 |
No class, Easter break |
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10 |
4-4 |
Ben Jonson, Volpone (ca. 1605), 1-3 |
4-2 |
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11 |
4-11 |
Volpone, 4-5; Middleton, A Trick to Catch the Old One (1607), 1-2 |
1-3 |
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12 |
4-18 |
A Trick to Catch the Old One, 3-5 |
2-3 |
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13 |
4-25 |
Ben Jonson, The Alchemist (ca 1610), 1-2 |
3-3 |
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14 |
5-2 |
Alchemist, 3-5; presentations on research paper |
4-3 |
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15 |
5-9 |
presentations on research paper |
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16 |
5-16 |
peer-editing workshop; draft of research paper due |
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17 |
5-23 |
final research paper due |
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Course Requirements and Expectations: |
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Attendance Because your presentations and contributions to class discussion are a central part of your coursework, attendance is crucial. If you miss more than two classes, your overall grade will drop; at four absences, you may fail the class. Arriving late will count as a partial absence. |
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Texts I have ordered copies of the plays at Shakespeare & Co (note that Plutus is titled Wealth, in a collection titled Birds and Other Plays, and there are two separate Plautus volumes, each titled Four Plays), but you are welcome to use other editions if you prefer. If purchasing the books is a problem, there are also texts in the library. Because discussions will focus on close readings of passages, it is important that everyone has a copy of the play in class. If you forget your copy, stop by the library and check one out on the way to class. Recommended secondary readings will be available on Blackboard. |
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Participation Learning is a collaborative process, which works best when each of you engages fully with the texts and with each other. To this end, I will expect you to participate actively in class discussions, and you will be required to make frequent presentations. In order to build a classroom atmosphere of courtesy and concentration, please avoid behavior that is disrespectful and interferes with othersÕ learning, including rudeness, talking while others are speaking, and ringing from cell-phones, pagers, watches, etc. |
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Writing Over the course of the semester you will write three short (2 page) papers accompanying in-class presentations, as well as one longer (12-15 pages) research paper. All written work should have a central claim that is well argued, clearly written, and directly supported by close readings of textual passages; the research paper will also incorporate, and respond to, at least three secondary sources. All papers should be typed, double-spaced, in a 12-point font, with one-inch margins on all sides. Punctuality matters: written work is due at the start of class, and lateness will result in lowering of the grade. Any use of othersÕ ideas must be fully acknowledged in footnotes; speak to me if you are unsure about what this means. Plagiarism is a serious offense, and will result in failing the class and being reported to the DeanÕs Office. |
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Coursework and grading: Presentations and participation 3 short papers (10% each) Research proposal Research paper draft Final research paper |
30% 30% 10% 10% 20% |
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Selected recommended secondary readings (available on
Blackboard, except for full books)
Aristophanes:
Kenneth Dover, ÒWealth,Ó in Aristophanic Comedy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), 202-209.
Douglas MacDowell, ÒWealth,Ó in Aristophanes and Athens (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 324-249.
James F. McGlew, ÒAfter Irony: AristophanesÕ Wealth and its Modern Interpreters,Ó
American Journal of Philology 118:1 (1997), 35-53.
Michael Silk, ÒPrologueÓ and part of ÒThree Openings,Ó in Aristophanes and the Definition of Comedy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 1-29.
Alan Sommerstein, ÒAristophanes and Demon Poverty,Ó Classical Quarterly 34 (1984), 314-33.
Plautus:
Robin P. Bond, ÒPlautusÕ Amphitryo
as Tragi-comedy,Ó Greece and Rome
46:2 (1999), 203-219.
Pamela R. Bleisch, ÒPlautine Travesties of Gender and Genre: Transvestism and Tragicomedy in Amphitruo,Ó Didaskalia 4.1 (1997) http://www.didaskalia.net/issues/vol4no1/bleisch.html
Kathleen McCarthy, ÒThe Ties that Bind: Menaechmi,Ó in Slaves, Masters, and the Art of Authority in Plautine Comedy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 34-76.
Timothy Moore, ÒTragicomedy as a Running Joke: PlautusÕ Amphitruo in Performance,Ó Didaskalia suppl. 1 (1995)
http://www.didaskalia.net/issues/supplement1/moore.html
Erich Segal, ÒThe Menaechmi: Roman Comedy of Errors,Ó Yale Classical Studies 21 (1969), 77-93.
Niall Slater, ÒAmphitryo, Bacchae, and Metatheatre,Ó in Lexis 5-6 (1990), 101-126.
Terence:
Cynthia S. Dessen, ÒThe Figure of the Eunuch in TerenceÕs Eunuchus,Ó Helios 22:2 (1995), 123-139.
Sharon L. James, ÒFrom boys to men: Rape and Developing Masculinity in Terence's Hecyra and Eunuchus,Ó Helios 1998 25 (1), 31-47.
David Konstan, ÒLove in TerenceÕs Eunuch: The origins of erotic subjectivity,Ó American Journal of Philology 107 (1986), 369-393.
Renaissance Reception:
Richard F. Hardin, ÒMenaechmi and the Renaissance of Comedy,Ó Comparative Drama
37:3,4, (2003-04), 255-274.
Richard F. Hardin, ÒEncountering Plautus in the Renaissance: A Humanist Debate on Comedy,Ó Renaissance Quarterly 60:3 (2007), 789-818.
Robert S. Miola, Shakespeare and Classical Comedy: The Influence of
Plautus and Terence (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1994).
Wolfgang Riehle, Shakespeare, Plautus, and the Humanist Tradition (Cambridge: Boydell and Brewer, 1990).
Matthew Steggle, ÒAristophanes in Early Modern England,Ó in Aristophanes in performance, 421 BC-AD 2007: Peace, Birds and Frogs, ed. Edith Hall and Amanda Wrigley (MHRA, 2007), 52-65.
Shakespeare:
Catherine Belsey, ÒTwelfth
Night and the riddle of Gender,Ó in Why
Shakespeare? (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007), 129-148.
Joseph Candido, ÒDining Out in
Ephesus: Food in The Comedy of Errors,Ó SEL: Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900
30:2 (1990), 217-41.
Keir Elam, ÒThe Fertile Eunuch: Twelfth Night, Early Modern Intercourse,
and the Fruits of Castration,Ó Shakespeare
Quarterly 47:1 (1996), 1-36.
Robert S. Miola, ÒNew Comedic Errors: The Comedy of Errors and Twelfth
Night,Ó in Shakespeare and Classical Comedy: The Influence of
Plautus and Terence (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1994), 19-61.
Laurie Maguire, ÒThe Girls
from Ephesus,Ó in The Comedy of
Errors: Critical Essays, ed. Robert S. Miola (New York: Routledge, 1997),
355-91.
Paul Mueschke and Jeannette
Fleisher, ÒJonsonian Elements in the Comic Underplot of Twelfth Night,Ó PMLA 48:4
(1933), 722-740.
Wolfgang Riehle,
ÒCharacterization in Plautus and in The
Comedy of Errors,Ó in Shakespeare,
Plautus, and the Humanist Tradition (Cambridge: Boydell and Brewer, 1990),
44-76.
Karen Robertson, ÒA Revenging
Feminine Hand in Twelfth Night,Ó Reading and Writing in Shakespeare, ed.
David M. Bergeron (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1996), 116-130.
Leo Salinger, ÒThe Design of Twelfth Night,Ó Shakespeare Quarterly 9:2 (1958), 117-139.
Marguerite Tassi, ÒÔSportful
Malice,Õ or What Maria Wills: Revenge Comedy in Twelfth Night,Ó Upstart Crow 27
(2007), 32-50.
Jonson:
Joachim Frenk,
ÒJacobean City Comedies: Ben JonsonÕs The Alchemist and Thomas
MiddletonÕs A Chaste Maid in Cheapside,Ó in A History of British
Drama, ed. Sibylle Baumbach, Birgit Neumann, and Ansgar NŸnning (Trier: Wissenschaftlicher
Verlag Trier, 2011), 95-111.
Alexandra Gillespie,
ÒBen JonsonÕs The Alchemist,Ó in British Writers: Classics, Volume I,
ed. Jay Parini (New York: Scribner's, 2003), 1-22.
Ian Donaldson, ÒVolpone and the Ends of Comedy,Ó Sydney Studies 18 (1992), 48-71.
Geraldo U Sousa, ÒBoundaries of Genre in Ben JonsonÕs Volpone and The Alchemist,Ó Essays in Theatre 4:2 (1986), 134-146.
Richard Dutton, ÒVolpone and Beast Fable: Early Modern Analogic Reading,Ó in Huntington Library Quarterly 67 (2004), 347-70.
Robert N. Watson, ÒThe Alchemist and Jonson's Conversion of Comedy,Ó in Renaissance Genres, ed. Barbara K. Lewalski (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986), 332-367.
Middleton:
Richard F. Hardin, ÒMiddleton,
Plautus, and the Ethics of Comedy,Ó in The Oxford Handbook to Thomas Middleton (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2011), 296-311.
Eric Leonidas, ÒThe School of
the World: Trading on Wit in Middleton's Trick to Catch the Old One,Ó Early Modern Literary Studies 12:3
(2007) http://extra.shu.ac.uk/emls/12-3/leontri2.htm
David B. Mount, ÒThe
Ô(Un)Reclaymed FormeÕ of MiddletonÕs A Trick to Catch the Old One,Ó Studies
in English Literature 31:2 (1991), 259-72.
Scott Cutler Shershow, ÒThe Pit of Wit: Subplot and Unity in
MiddletonÕs A Trick to Catch the Old One,Ó Studies in Philology
88 (1991), 363-81.