This seminar will concentrate on three of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies: Romeo and Juliet, Othello, and Hamlet. While taking into account language and theatricality, we shall approach plays from the perspectives of plot and characterization. As tragedies, these plays trace the decline and fall of their heroes. Together, we shall examine the voices of the tragic heroes and analyze their characters. This approach will lead to the heroes’ psychologies and some of the enduring questions everyone must face: What is the world? How can one meet the problems of life? Is there an order to history, and if so can it be controlled? What is death? Ultimately, our study of the plays will deepen our sense of the mystery of human life, what Antony in Antony and Cleopatra describes as ‘All that can be won and lost.’
Meet Your Instructor
PETER E. MEDINE is Professor Emeritus at the University of Arizona, where he served in the English Department from 1969 to 2014. He has written, edited, or coedited seven books in Early Modern English studies. His most recent coedited book is Visionary Milton: Essays in Prophecy and Violence (2010). He is the recipient of several Humanities Seminars Superior Teaching Awards and the College of Humanities Award for Outreach Service.
Location
POETRY CENTER
Dorothy Rubel Room
1508 E Helen
Tucson, AZ 85721
United States
Located on the SE corner of Helen Street and Vine Avenue, one block north of Speedway and three blocks west of Campbell Ave.
