Theater and Film in Europe

from Shakespeare

to the French Revolution

In early modern Europe -- as in contemporary society -- culture was inseparable from politics. From the balls of Renaissance courts to the formation of state-run public theaters and entrepreneurial, commercial venues to the festivals of the French Revolution, theater was constantly a crucial medium by which those holding or contesting for political power could get across a message to an increasingly broad audience. The course explores these developments between 1500 and 1800, focusing on plays not only as a literary genre but as written sources for major cultural, social and political developments. We will at the same study and discuss modern films of early modern plays as visual sources of how twentieth-century Europeans society think about the cultural politics of the period from Shakespeare to the French Revolution.

Shakespeare, Henry V		Racine, Phedre
Ford, Tis Pity She's a Whore		Beaumarchais, Mariage of Figaro
Moliere, Tartuffe		Gay, Beggar's Opera

Students will read these plays and in class sessions will view films of these plays. Class discussions will address important historical issues such as patronage, censorship, ownership (of the theater and of literary property), audiences (especially their changing social composition), and the role of print as a medium in expanding the audience for any given play performed at these theaters. At the same time, each class session will discuss developments in genre, style and tone of plays in each type of theater and each national tradition of theater as well as differences in staging as seen through contemporary films of the plays we read. Theatrical genres to be discussed in class will include medieval mystery plays, the court masquerade, Renaissance commedia dell'arte, Spanish farcia and commedia nueva, history plays, classical Baroque tragedy court farce, and bourgeois drama as well as opera, dance and music.

Students grade will be based on active participation active in class discussions (15%), one in-class presentation of 10 minutes (25%) and three 45-minute quizzes (20% each).