123221 SE Literary Seminar / BA Paper / MA British/Irish/New English (2022S)

Yes, there is Shakespeare… And then there is that other guy, a generation later, who wrote masterpieces of Jacobean drama in all four major genres (comedy, tragedy, history play, tragicomedy) and whose professional life was most intimately linked with his city. In addition, Thomas Middleton (no relation to Kate) penned some pageants for the Lord Mayor of London and other civic entertainments, before being appointed as city chronologer. Middleton has been described as "The Hogarth of the Pen", which doesn't help a lot, unless you know who Hogarth is and what he did. William Hogarth was a widely popular 18th century painter/printmaker, who produced a body of work famed for depicting urban life with a satirical edge. And Middleton has the same type of talent, only a century earlier and chooses a verbal rather than a visual medium to express it. In this course, we are going to delve into 17th century London, courtesy of Middleton, whom one anonymous Victorian critic considered "too gross", in order to take a close look at four plays, two of which - not untypically, for the time, he co-authored with other playwrights.Quizzes:There will be a text knowledge quiz for each play, due before the lesson when we first discuss it. You will be able to fill in each quiz at home. Please send each filled-in quiz as a pdf-file attachment via email to sylvia.mieszkowski@univie.ac.at. NB: Any quiz sent in after the relevant class has started, will remain unmarked, which means you won't be able to collect points on it.Specialist model:Most importantly, this should allow you to delve into a world that is 'chronologically other' from ours and thus learn by comparing and contrasting. We will also discuss different approaches to the selected plays, which focus on aspects of gender, class, mythology, intertextuality, religion, politics and contemporary scandal. As regards methodology: There will be no monological student presentations in this class. Instead, you are expected to act as a specialist for one lesson of the term, either alone or as a member of a team, depending on the number of participants. How exactly this works in terms of timing, what will be expected of you and what a 'prep mail', 'the double-feedback-loop' and a 'golden nugget' is, I shall explain in detail in the first lesson. You'll be expected to write a prep mail, provide a ppt presentation as an accompaniment to your specialist task and give feedback to one specialist/team.