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JOHN CABOT UNIVERSITY

COURSE CODE: "EN 243"
COURSE NAME: "Shakespeare And Italy"
SEMESTER & YEAR: Spring 2025
SYLLABUS

INSTRUCTOR: Livia Sacchetti
EMAIL: [email protected]
 HOURS: TTH 3:00 PM 4:15 PM
TOTAL NO. OF CONTACT HOURS: 45
CREDITS: 3
PREREQUISITES: Prerequisite: EN 110 with a grade of C or above
OFFICE HOURS:
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
This course entails the study of five of Shakespeare’s plays in order to assess how he located and historicized his Italian-based drama. Thanks to the Rome location, students will be able to directly compare the archaeology of Shakespeare’s creativity with the splendors of ancient and Renaissance Italy that are integral to the works covered by the course.  Throughout, the course will track the intersections of Shakespeare’s dramatic narrative with the notion of Italian ‘cultural difference’ in Shakespeare’s time, allowing students to learn how he dramatizes the Italian ‘Other’. In doing so, they will read his primary sources and evaluate how Shakespeare’s creative brilliance responded to the writings of historians such as Plutarch and Macchiavelli and story tellers such as Ovid, Matteo Bandello and Giovanni Fiorentino. The course will also attempt to gauge whether, within Shakespeare's Italian plays, there exists a veiled critique of the Elizabethan and Jacobean courts in which his work was widely circulated. The course will also explore how filmmakers have documented Shakespeare’s obsession with Italy, and how their work both subverts and confirms Shakespeare’s imaginative settings and Italianate compulsions. This is a reading and writing intensive course. Students in 200-level literature classes are required to produce 4-5,000 words of critical writing.
SUMMARY OF COURSE CONTENT:

Through a close reading of five key plays (Romeo and Juliet, 1595/6; The Merchant of Venice; 1597, Julius Caesar, 1599; Twelfth Night, 1601; Antony and Cleopatra, 1606), students will explore Shakespeare’s relationship with Italy as an imaginary landscape, one born from a combination of details found in sources and creative conceits. Each play will be introduced and contextualized through pointed lectures, and then discussed in detail in a Socratic seminar. The plays span the arc of Shakespeare’s career and will allow us to investigate the development of his relationship with both ancient Rome and Early Modern Italy; they will also offer precious insights into the evolution of Shakespeare’s voice as a playwright, illuminating the changes in his experimentation with dramatic form. The specific relationship with sources, tropes, and history will serve as a springboard to investigate Shakespeare’s portrayal of a changing world. This course will also focus on Shakespeare's reshaping of specific tropes stemming from the Italian poetic tradition and from the Roman sources (such as, the angelic woman of Petrarchan inspiration or the heroism portrayed in Plutarch's histories). Selected secondary readings will be crucial in this respects. Students are expected to take an active role in class discussion and to come to class having completed the assigned reading and reflected upon its implications.


Special attention will be devoted to how place can shape the human experience or contribute to the creation of cultural constructs, and to how the structure of a play reflects ideas on the human.

 

List of Plays:

Romeo and Juliet

The Merchant of Venice

Julius Caesar

Twelfth Night

Antony and Cleopatra

 

 
LEARNING OUTCOMES:

Upon completion of this course students will have a strong understanding of the Shakespearean canon and a clear understanding of the development of his use of place as a foundational element in the creation of a microcosm. Students' critical competence will grow as a result; they will learn to develop an original argument orally and in their writing. Students will also develop a clear understanding of dramatic form and its sub-genres (tragedy, comedy, tragicomedy, and farce). They will hone their ability to evaluate the details shaping a text in a competent, accurate, and increasingly original manner. The three papers they will submit will allow them to develop a cogent argument by evaluating a specific textual feature in light of the text's larger conceptual underpinnings.
TEXTBOOK:
NONE
REQUIRED RESERVED READING:
NONE

RECOMMENDED RESERVED READING:
NONE
GRADING POLICY
-ASSESSMENT METHODS:
AssignmentGuidelinesWeight
Class Participation and paper proposals 5%
First Paper1400-1600 words — two secondary sources requires20%
Second Paper 1400-1600 words -- two secondary sources required25%
Third Paper1600- 1800 words — research focus25%
Final ExamClose-text analysis25%
   
   

-ASSESSMENT CRITERIA:
AWork of this quality directly addresses the question or problem raised and provides a coherent argument displaying an extensive knowledge of relevant information or content. This type of work demonstrates the ability to critically evaluate concepts and theory and has an element of novelty and originality. There is clear evidence of a significant amount of reading beyond that required for the course.
BThis is highly competent level of performance and directly addresses the question or problem raised.There is a demonstration of some ability to critically evaluatetheory and concepts and relate them to practice. Discussions reflect the student’s own arguments and are not simply a repetition of standard lecture andreference material. The work does not suffer from any major errors or omissions and provides evidence of reading beyond the required assignments.
CThis is an acceptable level of performance and provides answers that are clear but limited, reflecting the information offered in the lectures and reference readings.
DThis level of performances demonstrates that the student lacks a coherent grasp of the material.Important information is omitted and irrelevant points included.In effect, the student has barely done enough to persuade the instructor that s/he should not fail.
FThis work fails to show any knowledge or understanding of the issues raised in the question. Most of the material in the answer is irrelevant.
-ATTENDANCE REQUIREMENTS:
Attendance is mandatory.  After three absences, your overall grade for the course is reduced with each additional absence (unless these are excused by the Dean). Leaving class for longer than 15 minutes will result in an absence unless this has been allowed by the Professor.
ACADEMIC HONESTY
As stated in the university catalog, any student who commits an act of academic dishonesty will receive a failing grade on the work in which the dishonesty occurred. In addition, acts of academic dishonesty, irrespective of the weight of the assignment, may result in the student receiving a failing grade in the course. Instances of academic dishonesty will be reported to the Dean of Academic Affairs. A student who is reported twice for academic dishonesty is subject to summary dismissal from the University. In such a case, the Academic Council will then make a recommendation to the President, who will make the final decision.
STUDENTS WITH LEARNING OR OTHER DISABILITIES
John Cabot University does not discriminate on the basis of disability or handicap. Students with approved accommodations must inform their professors at the beginning of the term. Please see the website for the complete policy.
SCHEDULE

Week 1: Romeo and Juliet Acts I and II

  • Verona -- political Italy
  • The City State; the role of the Prince
  • Old Order/ New Order: idealism

Week 2: Romeo and Juliet Acts III and IV

  • The role of the soliloquy: Mercutio and Friar Lawrence
  • Canker imagery and reversal of light/ dark imagery -- implications
  • Juliet's soliloquies: heroism

Week 3: Romeo and Juliet  Act V

  • Juliet's soliloquies: heroism

Week 4:The Merchant of Venice  Acts I, II, III

    • Venice: The individual and the city
    • The Mask
    • The Doge and the Legal State
    • Merchants

    Week 5: The Merchant of Venice Acts III, IV, V

    • Religious struggle
    • Class Struggle
    • Portia's role

    Week 6:  Julius Caesar Acts I,  II

    • Rome and England --  Elizabethan Imperialism
    • Plutarch
    • Fate -- the tragedy

    Week 7: Julius Caesar Acts I,  II, III

    • Fate: Brutus and Cassius
    • Marc Antony's speech

    Week 8: Acts VI and V

    • The tragic fall and the modern hero

    Week 9: Twelfth Night  Acts I and II

    • The Italian source/ Commedia/ and the invented setting
    • Viola's role
    • Tragic undertones

    Week 10: Acts III and IV

    • Gender as a mask
    • Societal roles as a mask

    Week 11: Act V

      • Gender as a mask
      • Societal roles as a mask

    Week 12: Antony and Cleopatra Acts I and II

    • Roman order and Egyptian longing: space as nostalgia
    • Plutarch's Cleopatra; Horace's Cleopatra; Shakespeare's Cleopatra
    • Cult of Elizabeth

    Week 13 : Acts II and IV

    • The fall of the Hellenistic empire; the rise of Rome
    • Reversal of heroism
    • Reversal of hierarchies

    Week 14: Act V

    • Cleopatra's fall and the creation of a legend