Gürtner, Susanne

At the beginning of the 17th century, London had developed into one of the largest cities in Europe, a bustling metropolis bringing together people and goods from all around the world in a rapidly developing urban marketplace.
In this seminar, we will explore the relationship between the developing city and literary production. Plays depicting contemporary urban spaces became particularly popular at the beginning of the 17th century, with playwrights often choosing London as the backdrop for their vibrant depictions of Early Modern urban life. We will explore how Early Modern playwrights reflected on the pressures of the emergent capitalist system on the individual, as well as their own role as producers of cultural commodities.
These biting satires shift their focus onto a new set of dramatis personae, often coming from the mercantile class, and themes and conflicts reflecting contemporary social changes and struggles.
They capture the excitement and bustling atmosphere of the Early Modern metropolis, with its promise of financial success and social advancement, while also attending to the anxieties and conflicts that resulted from perceived threats to the existing social order.
In this seminar, we will explore how these texts stage and reflect on these intergenerational, class- and gender-based conflicts. Our investigation will be supplemented by a wide array of contemporary sources dealing with Early Modern London and its inhabitants, such as surveys, travel reports, court documents, conduct books, pamphlets, and sermons.

Texts:
William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice (Arden Shakespeare 3rd Edition),
John Marston: The Dutch Courtesan (Arden Early Modern Drama)
George Chapman, Ben Jonson, and John Marston: Eastward Ho (included in The Routledge Anthology of Early Modern Drama – digital copy available via UB)
Ben Jonson: Epicœne, or The Silent Woman,
Thomas Dekker and Thomas Middleton: The Roaring Girl (both texts are contained in The Routledge Anthology of Renaissance Drama – digital copy available via UB).
Requirements: Active participation, reading responses, term paper (8–10 pages).

The nature of kingship is a central theme of many Early Modern plays: What is the source of princely authority, and what are its limits? How should the ideal ruler behave, and what if a monarch is corrupt or incompetent? Are there circumstances under which subjects can or even should resist their ruler?

This course will offer an overview of some central concepts of Early Modern political thought, such as the “divine right of kings”, Machiavellianism, Republicanism and Resistance Theory, as well as explore the Early Modern public stage as a space for contemporary political debate. Starting with the genre of the “history play,” particularly popular during the 1590s, we will look at central plays of the genre, such as Marlowe’s Edward II and Shakespeare’s second Tetralogy (in excerpts), to explore how Early Modern playwrights responded to contemporary political and cultural developments in their works. In addition, we will investigate the classical roots of contemporary political discourse with one of Shakespeare’s “Roman plays” (Julius Caesar). Finally, we will turn to Shakespeare’s later imaginations of kingship in Hamlet and King Lear in order to investigate the changes in political climate that came with the shift from Elizabethan to Jacobean rule.

Our exploration of these texts will be supplemented by a wide array of historical sources reflecting contemporary attitudes on kingship and sovereignty, such as speeches, sermons, pamphlets and the writings of influential humanist and political thinkers such as Machiavelli, Montaigne, and Erasmus.