Students taking ECSL6003 Post-War Cultural Movements and Texts or ECSL6004 Context and Comparison in Post-War Literature may take this seminar.
Tutor: Dr Novella Mercuri.
Time: Tuesday, 5.00-6.00pm.
Venue: Foster Court 111
Shakespeare’s characters have fascinated readers for centuries and undergone innumerable mutations and reincarnations in countless spin offs. In particular, Hamlet has had many afterlives. Readers cannot be satisfied with what Shakespeare shows in his play of this character and of his story. They welcome therefore any creative attempt, literary or visual, to illuminate obscure points, flesh out minor characters and clarify the nature of Hamlet’s relation to them. The first part of this seminar will focus on two novels – a prequel and a sequel to Shakespeare’s Hamlet – that draw on the ancient Scandinavian legends that inspired Elizabethan versions of the story. The second part will deal with some famous and less famous film adaptations of Shakespeare’s version of the legend. As with novels inspired by Hamlet, movies of Hamlet count on the familiarity their audience have, if not with the Shakespearean text, at least with its plot, in order to give their own interpretation of the play, but also, through it, their own view of the world.
A good knowledge of the texts of Shakespeare’s Hamlet (Second Quarto and Folio versions), is assumed. Students are also expected to see the films prior to their discussion in class. The UCL library has copies available.
Sessions
* Week 1 Saxo and other sources of Shakespeare's Hamlet
* Week 2 The texts of Shakespeare's Hamlet
* Week 3 Prequels and sequels. Gertrud and Claudius
* Week 4 Character and iconography of Ophelia and Hamlet
* Week 5 The Prince of Denmark
* Week 6 Reading Week
* Week 7 Visual Shakespeare
* Week 8 Hamlet and Psychoanalysis (Olivier's film)
* Week 9 Hamlet and politics (Kozintsev's film)
* Week 10 From student prince to lethal weapon (Zeffirelli's and Branagh's
films)
* Week 11 Hamlet in 21st century cinema
Texts
* Saxo Grammaticus, Historia Danica, Book III (photocopied extracts
will be distributed).
* John Updike, Gertrud and Claudius (2000).
* Graham Holderness, The Prince of Denmark (2002).
Films
* Hamlet, dir. L. Olivier (GB, 1948) – week 6.
* Hamlet, dir. G. Kozintsev (USSR, 1964) – week 7.
* Hamlet, dir. F. Zeffirelli (USA, 1990) – week 8.
* Hamlet, dir. K. Branagh (USA, 1996) - week 9.
* Hamlet, dir. M. Almereyda (USA, 2000) - week 10.