Cancelled English - Free topic F: Shakespeare and the Uniting of the Kingdoms

Cancelled

We shall in this course look at Shakespeare’s plays in the light of political and constitutional concerns over the ideas of nation, kingship, sovereignty, authority, law and loyalty (among others). It may be noted that some of these words carry considerable force to this day. The formation in Tudor and Jacobean times of what would become the United Kingdom was the source of much anxiety then, and similar anxieties attend the future of the United Kingdom in our own age.  

The first half of the course will be devoted to the cycle of four history plays— Richard II, Henry IV Parts One and Two and Henry V—and in the second half we will examine two of the great tragedies: Hamlet and Macbeth. It is striking that these tragedies, along with King Lear, are concerned with the question of succession. In succession lies not only the continuity of institutions and the peaceful transfer of authority but also the identity of the state and the stability of the symbols of the nation.