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Hamlet

Overview

This module will take students through some of the canonical and less familiar works of a single author. The module will consider in detail aspects such as important thematic and stylistic aspects of the chosen author’s work, the chronological development of their writing practice, and their relationship to key historical and literary contexts, as well as assessing trends in the critical and cultural reception of the author’s work. The author studied will change each year, dependent on the research specialisms of the convenor, as will the mode in which you engage with that author’s works across the term. The module would be particularly useful to students doing or considering a dissertation or further study, but will also be of interest generally for its focused exploration.

In 2025/6, the focus will be on William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Printed in three distinct versions at the start of the seventeenth century, this is a play that is textually unstable, but now claims canonical status. Throughout the module, students will learn how to use etymology, historical context, contemporary theory, and literary criticism to set Shakespeare’s ‘wild and whirling words’ in motion, (re)discovering Hamlet’s lost lexicons and newfound implications. From an examination of the play’s ancient roots in the poetry of Epicurean philosopher Lucretius, to an evaluation of the play’s contemporary critical reception, this ‘single-text study’ module offers students the opportunity to become close, critical, creative readers of Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

Teaching

Term 1 Only

1.5 hour weekly seminars

Syllabus

Week 1 - The Three Hamlets (Q1, Q2, F1)

Week 2 - 'Wild and Whirling Words': Etymology Workshop

Week 3 - Source/Parallel Texts I: reading Hamlet through Lucretius

Week 4 - Source/Parallel Texts II: reading Hamlet through Montaigne

Week 5 - Humouring Hamlet I: the early modern body as context

Week 6 - READING WEEK

Week 7 - Humouring Hamlet II: melancholy

Week 8 - The ‘Moore’ Claudius: (Mis)reading Race in Hamlet

Week 9 - Hamlet’s worms: non-human perspectives

Week 10 - Queering Hamlet