Interpretation Seminar 1

Subject is not scheduled Display Schedule

Subject guarantor

Michaela RAISOVÁ

Name of lecturer(s)

Ondřej POLÁK, Michaela RAISOVÁ

Department

The subject provides Department of Authorial Creativity and Pedagogy

Contents

Interpretation Seminar Syllabus (Summer Semester 2025-26): Shakespeare: Theatre in text and text in theatre

Time: Tuesdays 13-14:30 (starting 17.2.2026), T320 (HAMU)

This seminar aims to provoke critical thinking by reading Shakespeare’s plays: tragedies, comedies, “problem” and history plays. The text and its careful reading is the primary source of discussion. Special attention is paid to language, speech, and the principle of theatricality, structure of the narrative and the basic unit of drama – a situation. Through Shakespeare, the seminar will touch on theatre as a topic on its own, while engaging with comparisons to various adaptations (theatre, film, comics, pop culture etc.), contemporary topics (gender, race, politics, ethics, social changes and its reflections) and ways of characterization, along with a focus on authorial acting and actors (with adaptations for the screen). Topics will also be adapted according to students and their interests and input (culture, background, interest etc.).

Students have short presentations during the semester and at the end, we have a “colloquium” – during which students present their own reading and topics in a short 15 min oral presentation. Moderated discussion follows. To fulfil the subject requirements, students must attend regularly (miss a max. of 3 classes) and be active in the class (present assigned topics, participate in a discussion and deliver a short presentation at the end of the semester). At the end of the semester, BA students write an essay with proper citations (deadline 31.7.), MA students in their 2nd year do not. Each student presents a play each class, focusing on a specific topic by their choice – discussed with the pedagogue beforehand. Secondary literature will be distributed before the class.

The order of the classes and topics below is orientational.

Key words: Shakespeare, tragedies, comedies, histories, comparative reading, original works reinvented, identity, representation, language, speech, politics, adaptations, authorial acting, thorough and attentive reading

1.Technical Terms of Literature and Drama

We will discuss a selection of useful technical terms of theatre, literature, and the verbal arts, with examples from our texts.

Among the questions we will discuss: In the structure of a play, what is the narratological difference between story and plot (from Russian formalist terms fabula and syuzhet) and how do we use these in our everyday life? What is a narrative voice? What is metre and how does it work? How does the sound of speech and language influence meaning through techniques like alliteration, assonance, rhyme, sibilance? What is the associative power of rhetorical devices like metaphor, metonymy, personification, synecdoche? Are reception, performance contexts, intertext even important to consider? Structural aspects of classical plays tend to repeat themselves: the tragic hero, hamartia, anagnorisis, agon etc.. This is a roadmap: it is good to know that aspects of storytelling have names, and what words we can use to describe plays we see and discuss, whether it is Shakespeare, or an Authorial Presentation. No required reading.

2.The Tempest, Peter Greenway, watch film Prospero´s Books (1991, DAMU library)

Diana E. Henderson, “The Tempest in Performance,” A Companion to Shakespeare’s Works, Volume IV, eds. Richard Dutton and Jean E. Howard (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003) 216-239.

3.Romeo and Juliet, West Side Story and other adaptations

Lawrence Edward Bowling, “The Thematic Framework of Romeo and Julie”, PMLA, Mar., 1949, Vol. 64, No. 1 (Mar., 1949), pp. 208-220

Chris Palmer, 'What tongue shall smooth thy name?' Recent Films of „Romeo and Juliet“, The Cambridge Quarterly, 2003, Vol. 32, No. 1 (2003), (61-76)

4.Measure for Measure – subtopics: morality, power, politics

Paul Yachnin, “Shakespeare’s Problem Plays and the Drama of His Time: Troilus and Cressida, All’s Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure,” A Companion to Shakespeare’s Works, Volume IV: The Poems, Problem Comedies, and Late Plays, eds. Richard Dutton and Jean E. Howard (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003) 46-68. (filr)

Karen Cunningham, “Opening Doubts Upon the Law: Measure for Measure,” A Companion to Shakespeare’s Works, Volume IV: The Poems, Problem Comedies, and Late Plays, eds. Richard Dutton and Jean E. Howard (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003) 316-332.

5.As You Like It – subtopics: female character, manipulation, identity, theatricality

Juliet Dusinberre “As You Like It,” A Companion to Shakespeare’s Works, Volume III: The Comedies, eds. Richard Dutton and Jean E. Howard (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003) 411-428.

Phyllis Rackin, “Shakespeare’s Crossdressing Comedies,” A Companion to Shakespeare’s Works, Volume III: The Comedies, eds. Richard Dutton and Jean E. Howard (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003) 114-136.

6.-7. Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (both the play and the film by T. Stoppard)

Jan Kott, “Hamlet of the Mid-Century,” Shakespeare, Our Contemporary (London: Methuen, 1967) 49-60. (SHAREPOINT, DAMU)

Anna K. Nardo, “Stoppard's Space Men: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern on Film,” Literature/Film Quarterly Vol. 36, No. 2 (2008), pp. 113-121

Martin Esslin „The Tradition of the Absurd“

8.Twelfth Night – sex and gender, crossdressing, disguise, love, foolishness and the romcom genre, the status/power of the female, social roles, social hierarchy and its inversion, dramatic irony.

Twelfth Night 1996 (with Helena Bonham Carter & Ben Kingsley), She’s the Man 2006

H.B. Charlton: Shakespeare’s Heroines and the Art of Happiness (in D.J. Palmer: Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, a Casebook, 1972)

Joseph Summers: The Masks of Twelfth Night (ibid.)

Phyllis Rackin, “Shakespeare’s Crossdressing Comedies,” A Companion to Shakespeare’s Works, Volume III: The Comedies, eds. Richard Dutton and Jean E. Howard (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003) 114-136. (filr)

1. Aristotle’s Poetics & the beginnings of theory

European drama has its roots in classical Greece, and many structural elements of Athenian tragedy are directly adopted by the European tradition of later centuries, which includes Shakespeare. For this reason, Aristotle’s philosophical text on Greek tragedy The Poetics (his text on Comedy unfortunately does not survive) is still a very useful tool for the description and understanding of literary and dramatic devices which are used not only by Shakespeare, but in modern drama, literature, film and computer games etc.

Reading: Aristotle: Poetics

(any edition is sufficient, there is a copy in English in the DAMU library: D_4A 19121,a)

10.Intention & Interpretation – To what extent do the intentions of a creator influence the interpretation of a work of art? Intentionalism, Anti-Intentionalism, Hypothetical Intentionalism

Jerrold Levinson: Intention and Interpretation: a last look (in Iseminger: Intention and Interpretation, Temple University Press, 1992) Wimsatt & Beardsley: The Intentional Fallacy, Roland Barthes: The Death of the Author

11.-12. Colloquiums (oral presentations)

Secondary Sources:

Dutton, Richard and Jean E. Howard, eds. A Companion to Shakespeare’s Works, Volume II: The Histories. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003. (filr)

Dutton, Richard and Jean E. Howard, eds. A Companion to Shakespeare’s Works, Volume III: The Comedies. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003. (filr)

Dutton, Richard and Jean E. Howard, eds. A Companion to Shakespeare’s Works, Volume IV: The Poems, Problem Comedies, and Late Plays. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003. (filr)

Kott, Jan. Shakespeare, Our Contemporary. London: Methuen, 1967. (DAMU, filr)

Jackson, Russel, ed. Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Film. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. (filr)

Peter Brook, The Quality of Mercy: Reflections on Shakespeare. London: Nick Hern Books, 2014

W. B. Worthen, Shakespeare Performance Studies, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.

Learning outcomes

Instructing students to read carefully, make reading a need in life, that is, to demonstrate its sense. Considering the study focus, it is a training to read dramatic texts. Drama is not the summation of all lines and stage knowledge. To read a dramatic text is to decipher its structure. The interpretation course teaches this specific type of reading. It also shows how the structure of a dramatic text (today more often, post-dramatic) changed throughout the history of theatre.

Prerequisites and other requirements

Assessment: Attendance of at least 80%. Following the assigned reading (both primary and secondary texts!). Participating in discussion. An in-class 5-10 min. spoken presentation of a selected secondary text.

During the final session (kolokvia) in December all students are required to prepare a 15minute spoken presentation. The presentation must focus solely on plays and/or adaptations discussed in the seminar and should incorporate secondary sources to support arguments. The student may use text suggested throughout the seminar or other appropriate sources. MA students are also in addition required to hand a written essay using secondary sources. Scope of the essay is 2500 words, the deadline is in January, to be specified in the seminar.

The working language in English.

Literature

Huizinga, Johan. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture. Mansfield Centee, CT: Martino Publishing, 2014 [1950].

Esslin, Martin. The Theatre of the Absurd. London: Methuen, 2001.

Aristotle. Poetics. Mineola: Dover Publications, 1997.

Kott, Jan. Shakespeare Our Contemporary. Translated by Boleslaw Taborski. London: Methuen, 1967.

De Garcia, Magreta and Wells, Stanley, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

Sontag, Susan. An essay „Against Interpretation“ distributed as a printed document in the class.

Barthes, Roland. „The Death of the Author“ In Image, Music, Text. Translated by Stephan Heath. New York: Hill and Want, 1978.

Selected plays by William Shakespeare (King Lear, The Merchant of Venice, Hamlet, Richard III., Coriolanus, Midsummer Night‘s Dream, Macbeth, Othello, Romeo a Julie, Measure for Measure, The Tempest and other, depending on the group focus).

Selected plays by Tom Stoppard, J. M. Synge, Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, Marina Carr, Martin McDonagh, Patrick Marber, Sarah Kane, Joe Penhall, Edward Albee, Sam Shepard, David Mamet and other playwrights according to group’s interest.

Other essays and texts are distributed in the class according to the need and focus of the group.

Evaluation methods and criteria

Note

Reading (the order of the sessions and reading is subject to change):

1)Intro + J. M. Synge: Playboy of the Western World (pdf/ DAMU library)

Susan Sontag, Against Interpretation (pdf) Roland Barthes, The Death of the Author (pdf)

Pilný, Ondřej. Irony and Identity in Modern Irish Drama. Praha: Litteraria Pragensia, 2006.

2)Martin McDonagh: The Lonesome West (DAMU) + Sam Shepard: True West (DAMU)

Roche, Anthony. Contemporary Irish Drama. Palgrave, 2009. (damu)

Lonergan, Patrick. The Theatre and Films of Martin McDonagh. London: Methuen, 2012.

3)Marina Carr: By the Bog of Cats + Medea

M. Procházka: Feminism and Psychoanalitical Criticism (pdf)

Euripides: Medea (damu v An Anthology of Greek drama, Roobinson, 1949, New York)

Roche, Anthony. Contemporary Irish Drama. Palgrave, 2009. (DAMU)

4)Stewart Parker + Boucicault: Heavenly Bodies (pdf)

Grene, Nicholas. The Politics of Irish Drama. Plays in Context from Boucicault to Friel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999 (?)

Ondřej Pilný “Comedy of Terrors” (?)

5)Mark Ravenhill: Shopping and Fucking

Aleks Sierz: In-Yer-Face Theatre: British Drama Today (introductory chapter, pdf)

6)Sarah Kane: Phaedra´s Love + Seneca: Phaedra

(Seneca’s play in: A Treasury of the Theatre: An Anthology of Great Plays from Aeschylus to Eugene O'Neill) (DAMU library)

Saunders, Graham. Love Me or Kill me: Sarah Kane and the Theatre of Extremes (pdf)

Ken Urban: Towards a Theory of Cruel Britannia: Coolness, Cruelty, and the 'Nineties (pdf)

7)Tim Crouch: The Author + My Arm

Secondary Text: Ondřej Pilný: Imagine This: Tim Crouch, from The Grotesque in Contemporary Anglophone Drama (pdf)

8)David Ireland: Cyprus Avenue

Secondary Text: Clare Wallace, Commemoration, Ambivalent Attachments and Catharsis: David Ireland’s Cyprus Avenue at the Abbey Theatre in 2016 (pdf)

9)Caryl Churchill: Escaped Alone

Secondary Text: Dan Rabellatto, Of an Apocalyptic Tone Recently Adopted in Theatre: British Drama, Violence and Writing (pdf)

10)---------------Kolokvia/Presentations-------------------------

Schedule for winter semester 2025/2026:

• Week view
• List

Schedule for summer semester 2025/2026:

The schedule has not yet been prepared

The subject is a part of the following study plans

• Authorial Acting (M.A.) (Required subjects)