350:540

Index # - 11134

Distribution Requirement:  A2

Monday – 4:30 p.m.

MU 207

Ronald Levao

Shakespeare & Friendship

We will examine Shakespeare’s share in what used to be called the “Renaissance cult of friendship,” a  nearly obsessive appropriation and transformation of classical and medieval speculation about friendship by early-modern writers. We will begin with the three most influential classical discussions--Plato’s Lysis, Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (Books 8 and 9) and Cicero’s De amicitia--and look briefly at some medieval restatements before tackling selections from early modern texts by Montaigne (“Of Friendship”), Elyot (Book of the Governor), Spenser (The Faerie Queene, Book 4), and Marlowe Edward II).   Selections from modern literary critics, historians, and theorists will also help us shape our inquiry:  What impels the search for and contemplation of an alter ego?   How is friendship (philia) to be distinguished from erotic love, and how permeable is the boundary?  What kinds of friendship are possible between men?  between women?  How is friendship theory deployed in formulating the ideal of “companionate marriage”?  Is friendship a foundation for political order or a threat to public life?  Is friendship altruistic or an egoistic impulse masquerading as altruism?  What is the relation between friendship writing and early-modern subjectivity, solitude, and anxiety?

Shakespearean works will probably include the Sonnets, Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Merchant of Venice, As You Like it, Henry IV, Parts One and Two; Othello, Macbeth, Coriolanus, The Winter’s Tale, and  Two Noble Kinsmen. 

Background in Shakespeare and Renaissance literature and/or philosophy will be helpful, but not a requirement. 

Seminar members will be required to participate in class discussion, to write short, weekly response papers, and to produce a final seminar paper of 20-25 pages.

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