TTC Shakespeare\'s Tragedies

Shakespeare's contributions to stage and language are unequaled. In what Professor Clare R. Kinney calls the "power and audacity of his poetry and stagecraft," Shakespeare has left audiences breathless these past four centuries. His artistry is as evident in moments of insensate rage, as when King Lear dares Nature to do her worst—

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drenched our steeples,
drowned the cocks!

as it is in moments of heartbreaking tenderness, as when Othello steals a few last kisses from the sleeping and innocent wife he is about to murder for the adultery he imagines—

Ah balmy breath, that doth almost persuade
Justice to break her sword! One more, one more. …

But beyond his astonishing feats of language and dramatic impact, Shakespeare also left us a legacy, crafted from his experiences and explorations, of suffering and transgression in his six great mature tragedies: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus.

Course Lecture Titles

1. Defining Tragedy
2. Shakespearean Tragedy in Context
3. Hamlet I—"Stand and unfold yourself"
4. Hamlet II—The Performance of Revenge
5. Hamlet III—Difficult Women
6. Hamlet IV—Uncontainable Hamlet
7. Othello I—Miscegenation and Mixed Messages
8. Othello II—Monstrous Births
9. Othello III—"Ocular Proof"
10. Othello IV—Tragic Knowledge
11. King Lear I—Kingship and Kinship
12. King Lear II—"Unaccommodated Man"
13. King Lear III—The Stage of Fools
14. King Lear IV—"Is this the promised end?"
15. Macbeth I—Desire and Equivocation
16. Macbeth II—"Dispute it like a man"
17. Macbeth III—Bloody Babes and Bloody Ends
18. Antony and Cleopatra I—Epic Desires
19. Antony and Cleopatra II—Identity Politics
20. Antony and Cleopatra III—The Art of Dying
21. Coriolanus I—The Loner and the Mob
22. Coriolanus II—The Theater of Politics
23. Coriolanus III—Mothers and Killers
24. Conclusion—Beyond Tragedy?