ENG 320 - Studies in Drama

Revenge Tragedy
While most know that William Shakespeare’s Hamlet involves a ghost and a “murder most foul”, few are aware that these are elements of a genre that proved exceptionally long-lived on the early modern stage-the revenge tragedy. Playwrights working in this genre spurred innovations in stagecraft while providing a means to contemplate power and its abuses. Although the genre originated in elite individuals’ translations of the Roman dramatist Seneca, it took on new conventions and significances in plays written for London’s commercial stage. Playwrights turned to revenge plots to explore contradictions and failings in the legal, political, and moral codes meant to govern relationships between private individuals and public institutions. In this course, we will concern ourselves with three major topics: 1) how the representation of crimes and their discovery on stage influenced plays’ structure and rhetorical style; 2) how allusion and citation among plays produced recognizable character types; 3) how conventions for representing disorder and violence n stage interacted with social constructions of gender and emerging concepts of race. We will analyze famous examples of the revenge tragedy genre (such as William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Titus Andronicus) in conversation with lesser-known works (such as Elizabeth Cary’s Tragedy of Mariam and John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi). Carrying our discussion of these topics through to contemporary theatrical productions, we will consider the cultural work revenge tragedies and their theatrical legacy continue to perform today.

Unit(s): 1
Group Distribution Requirement(s): Distribution Group I
Prerequisite(s): Two English or literature courses at the 200 level or higher.
Instructional Method: Conference
Grading Mode: Letter grading (A-F)
Repeatable for Credit: May be taken 4 times for credit
Notes:

Not all topics offered every year.
Reveiw schedule of classes for availability.
Review specific descriptions for applicability to department requirements.
Renaissance Revenge Tragedies: This course applies toward the department’s pre-1700 requirement.

Not offered: 2026-27
Group Distribution Learning Outcome(s):

Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts.
Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).