In this course we will read great plays of the English Renaissance in tandem with their non-dramatic sources (history, romance, chapbook, story cycle). In a couple of instances, the plays themselves will be considered as sources for contemporary representations (Hamlet for Stoppard’s spinoff, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, and Macbeth for Kurosawa’s film, Throne of Blood). For Renaissance speakers the word ‘version’ principally meant a ‘translation’ from one language into another. We will observe and evaluate, therefore, what happens when a well-known or ‘true’ story gets ‘translated’ into the conventions and genres of the theater. We compare notable variations in the telling of the tales, with attention to the following questions: How does the alteration of a plot element change a story’s significance? How does the manner of presentation — the enactment of drama (mimesis) or the narration of prose (diegesis) — affect the way we understand characters?

great plays of the English Renaissance in tandem with their non-dramatic sources (history, romance, chapbook, story cycle).

comparison between the literary texts and plays.