230573 British Literature: Renaissance Love Tragedies (S) (SoSe 2007)

Many early modern writers considered love to be no fit subject for the noble genre of tragedy. They felt that amorous passion undermines a hero's masculine resolve (there is nothing "tragic" about a man crying over a woman), and that it kindles immoral desires in the theatre audience (who may be tempted to imitate, rather than beware, the irrationalities of lovers). These reservations notwithstanding, tragedies of love are among the greatest plays written and staged in Elizabethan and Jacobean England.

After a brief overview of the traditions, conventions and varieties of English Renaissance tragedy, we are going to focus on Christopher Marlowe, Edward II (homosexual love), William Shakespeare, Othello (interracial love), John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi (love across boundaries of social rank) and Thomas Middleton, Women Beware Women (love tragedy as black farce).

Please read the plays before the beginning of the semester and in modern critical editions (e.g. New Mermaids or Revels series for the non-Shakespeare plays; New Cambridge Shakespeare for Othello). School editions, Reclam, Oxford World Classics, etc. are NOT acceptable.