For almost 400 years, Shakespeare’s work has been the standard against which all writers have been judged. This course acknowledges that understanding Shakespeare can be difficult because his plays were written 400 years ago.
This difficulty can be overcome by understanding Shakespeare’s "wavelengths"—those conventions of speech and action by which Shakespeare constructed his plays and communicated their powerful effects.
Texts covered include Henry IV, Coriolanus, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Love’s Labor’s Lost, Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, Henry VI, Richard III, Hamlet, Antony and Cleopatra, Cymbeline, The Tempest, The Winter’s Tale, and Henry VIII, as well as various sonnets.