Shakespeare's Friends:
Marlowe, Beaumont/ Fletcher
Course Description
When Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) was stabbed to death in a tavern brawl almost 410 years ago, "cut [was] the branch that might have grown full straight," to quote Marlowe's own words. The life of the most promising playwright alongside William Shakespeare was ended under very mysterious circumstances. (Some experts would maintain that this was a secret-service plot to enable Marlowe to continue writing under the nom de plume of Shakespeare.)
In this course we will study Marlowe's The Tragicall History of Dr. Faustus (1592). This highly influential play foregrounds the conflicts between medieval form (morality play) and Renaissance thought (psychology of the individual) and by comparison throws into relief Shakespeare's more mature craftsmanship. Another interesting sidelight on Shakespeare is The Knight of the Burning Pestle (1607), written by Francis Beaumont (1584-1613) --perhaps/arguably-- in collaboration with John Fletcher (1579-1625), himself a well-known collaborator of Shakespeare's. The Knight of the Burning Pestle is a fine specimen of city comedy and an early form of metadrama or the play-within-the-play type which invites comparison with the generally more aristocratic world of Shakespeare's comedies and his use of the theatre-within-the-theatre device (viz. the Players in Hamlet, the mechanicals rehearsing a play in A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Required Reading: A private anthology especially designed for this course will be made available to participants after registration.
Prerequisites: Einführungskurs "Introduction to the Study of Literature"
Requirements for Credit: regular attendance, oral presentation, and term paper
Registration: To register, please send an e-mail to werner.huber@phil.tu-chemnitz.de before 15 September, stating your name, semester standing, and subjects.
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Sakespeare’s Friends
