MA Shakespeare

The Programme

The Shakespeare MA programme consists of two courses and a dissertation. The courses are: The Works: Plays & Poetry and King Lear: Critical Debate & Creative Response. The dissertation is written on an approved Shakespearean topic of the student’s choice. The programme also includes a short, non-assessed course on Methods & Materials of Research, which provides guidance on the use of library and web resources and the formatting of footnotes and bibliographies.

The courses are designed to provide both breadth of coverage and depth of focus:

• The Works: Plays & Poetry spans Shakespeare’s entire career as a dramatist and poet. It explores in detail, through close reading and class discussion, every kind of play he wrote and his greatest poetry, engaging throughout with the most important recent critical accounts of them. Term 1 focuses on the romantic comedies, the key history plays and the Sonnets, while Term 2 is devoted to the problem plays, the major tragedies and the haunting romances Shakespeare wrote at the end of his career.
• King Lear: Critical Debate & Creative Response: an intensive study of Shakespeare’s supreme tragic masterpiece, the controversies it has provoked, and the diverse ways in which it has been adapted and transformed since Shakespeare’s time. Term 1 begins with detailed discussion of the play itself before turning first to the critical debate and then exploring the creative impact of King Lear on later poetry, drama and fiction. Term 2 is devoted to studying the creative response to King Lear in the theatre and the cinema, tracking its performance history on stage and screen through in-depth analysis of landmark productions and film adaptations.

The MA is designed both for students who wish to pursue research at PhD level and for students who simply wish to develop their knowledge of Shakespeare and their critical skills beyond first-degree level. An introduction to research methods is part of the programme, and IT training, both elementary and advanced, is available on campus.

Structure of Programme

The Shakespeare MA programme begins in late September and lasts one year for full-time students and two years for part-time students. Each of the two courses constitutes a whole unit of study and is taught in 20 weekly two-hour seminars over two terms: 10 seminars in the Autumn Term and 10 seminars in the Spring Term. The dissertation is researched and written after both courses have been completed, between the start of Summer Term in late April and early September, when the dissertation is submitted. Full-time students take both courses concurrently; part-time students take the Works course in their first year and the King Lear course in their second. The non-assessed Methods & Materials of Research course is taken by all MA students in the Department in the first term of study.

Teaching and Learning

The work the courses entail is set out in course books, which specify the primary and secondary reading required for each week and suggest key topics for discussion as well as further reading. This enables students to plan their preparation and their acquisition of primary and secondary texts well in advance. The course books are supplemented by a more comprehensive Bibliography, which is tailored to the MA courses and includes an up-to-date list of Shakespeare resources available on the Internet. The Shakespeare MA Handbook provides students with all the information they need about the regulations and requirements of the programme, including assessment criteria and a guide to setting out quotations, footnotes and bibliographies.

The seminars provide students with the means to focus in depth on the material being studied, by combining close textual analysis and interpretation with broader discussion of the theatrical, historical and theoretical issues raised by the texts. Preparation is assigned by the tutor and includes regular class presentations. These allow students to investigate topics, develop arguments and present conclusions or pose questions for further discussion in the seminar. They also provide an opportunity to explore and test ideas for the essays each student is required to write for each course.

The dissertation is designed to test the student’s ability to handle a complex topic and to display research skills at greater length than the course essays allow. It may develop work done for any part of either course, or be on any topic approved by the student’s dissertation supervisor.

Students receive individual feedback on the problems, strengths and scope for improvement of the essays they write for their courses and on the devising and drafting of their dissertation.

Both courses use DVDs and videos throughout to illustrate and examine key scenes from screen versions of the plays. Students have excellent departmental and college collections of film, TV and audio productions of Shakespeare’s plays at their disposal for short-term borrowing.

The Shakespeare MA also has its own dedicated website on which the handbook, course books and bibliography are posted together with links to Shakespeare resources on the Internet, a discussion forum and a message board.

Methods of Assessment

Each student is required to write two essays of 3,500—4,500 words for each of the two courses, the first to be submitted by the first day of Spring Term, the second by the first day of Summer Term. The topics of the essays are agreed with the course tutor. Each student is also required to submit in September, at the end of the programme of study, a dissertation of 12,000—15,000 words (excluding bibliography and appendices) on an approved topic related to any aspect of the programme.

Entry Requirements

Normally a second-class BA in Single or Joint Honours English, or a suitable related discipline, is required of UK applicants. Overseas applicants should have a degree of equivalent standard and must possess a high level of competence in spoken and written English.

Further Information

If you would like further information or have further questions about the Shakespeare MA, or if you would like a sample course book emailed to you, contact the Programme Director, Professor Kiernan Ryan: k.j.p.ryan@rhul.ac.uk

Application

For information on how to apply for a place on the Shakespeare MA, go to http://www.rhul.ac.uk/Registry/Admissions/applyonline.html

Course Tutors

Kiernan Ryan, MA (Cantab), PhD (Amsterdam). Director of the Shakespeare MA. Professor of English Language and Literature at Royal Holloway; Fellow of Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge; Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts; Founding Fellow of the English Association. Member of the International Shakespeare Association, the Shakespeare Association of America, and the Deutsche Shakespeare-Gesellschaft. Chief research interests are in Shakespeare and Renaissance literature, literary theory, twentieth-century Irish writing and modern British fiction. He is the author of Shakespeare (1989; 2nd edn, 1995; 3rd edn, 2002) and Ian McEwan (1994; 2nd edn forthcoming), and the editor of King Lear: Contemporary Critical Essays (Macmillan, 1993), New Historicism and Cultural Materialism: A Reader (Edward Arnold, 1996), Shakespeare: The Last Plays (Longman, 1999) and Shakespeare: Texts and Contexts (Palgrave Macmillan, 2000). He wrote the Introduction for the new Penguin edition of King Lear (2005). His latest book is Shakespeare’s Comedies (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). Email: k.j.p.ryan@rhul.ac.uk; website: http://www.rhul.ac.uk/English/about-us/Staff/Ryan/About-us-Ryan.html

Ewan Fernie, MA (Edinburgh), PhD (St Andrews). Deputy Director of the Shakespeare MA. Reader in Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature. Director of Graduate Studies (Taught Programmes).  Chief research interests are Shakespeare, creativity and critical theory as well as religion and spirituality. He is the author of Shame in Shakespeare (Routledge, 2002), editor of Spiritual Shakespeares (Routledge, 2005) and coordinating editor of Reconceiving the Renaissance: A Critical Reader (Oxford University Press, 2005). He edits the new ‘minigraph’ series Shakespeare Now! (Continuum) with Simon Palfrey, with whom he has just completed a novel, Dunsinane, which begins the day after Macbeth.  He is also writing about the centrality of the demonic in modern literature and culture from Shakespeare to Thomas Mann. Dr Fernie is Principal Investigator on the AHRC/ESRC–funded project The Faerie Queene Now: Remaking Religious Poetry for Today’s World (http://www.rhul.ac.uk/English/faeriequeene/). All his recent and current work seeks more energetic, immediate ways of writing about Shakespeare and extending the possibilities of critical form. Email: ewan.fernie@rhul.ac.uk; website: http://www.rhul.ac.uk/English/about-us/Staff/Fernie/About-us-Fernie.html

Christie Carson, BA (Queen’s, Canada), MA (Toronto), PhD (Glasgow).  Senior Lecturer. Research interests include the performance history of Shakespeare, the use of digital technology in teaching and research, and intercultural performance. She is co-editor of The Cambridge King Lear CD-ROM: Text and Performance Archive (CUP, 2000) and author of ‘King Lear in North America’, an article on this CD. Dr Carson acted as the Principal Investigator on the AHRB research project Designing Shakespeare: An Audio-visual Database, 1960-2000, which documents the performance history of Shakespeare in Stratford and London (http://ahds.ac.uk/performingarts/designing-shakespeare). Her assessment of the position of archiving Shakespearean performance appeared in Performance Research (December 2005), and an article on the history of digital editing in Shakespeare Survey (2006). Shakespeare's Globe: A Theatrical Experiment (CUP 2008), a volume she edited with Farah Karim-Cooper, draws together essays by practitioners and academics writing about the theatrical experiments undertaken at the Globe Theatre during its first ten years. A second collection of essays, Shakespeare in Stages: New Directions in Theatre History (CUP, 2010), co-edited with Chris Dymkowski, examines recent trends in the study of theatre history.   Dr Carson is planning a monograph based on the Designing Shakespeare project that will illustrate the role of theatre design in creating audience empathy in contemporary performance. Email: c.carson@rhul.ac.uk; website: http://www.rhul.ac.uk/English/about-us/Staff/Carson/Carson.htm

Roy Booth, BA (Oxon), PhD (London). Senior Lecturer. Main research interests are Renaissance poetry and drama. He has recently completed a study of the misogamist (the marriage-hater) in English Renaissance comedy, which examines plays by Shakespeare, Fletcher, Heywood, Dekker, Chapman and the Duchess of Newcastle. A new edition of his revised and augmented edition of the Everyman Elizabethan Sonnets (1994) was published in 2003, and his annotated edition of John Donne’s Complete English Poems (Wordsworth Classics) in 2002. Recent essays include the chapter on ‘Caroline Theatre’ in Michael Hattaway (ed.), A Companion to English Renaissance Literature and Culture (Blackwell, 2000; updated version forthcoming in the new two-volume edition), ‘Witchcraft, Flight and the Early Modern English Stage’, in Early Modern Literary Studies 13:1 (May, 2007), and ‘Standing within the Prospect of Belief: Macbeth, King James, and Witchcraft’, which appeared in J. G. Newton (ed.), Witchcraft and the Act of 1604 (Brill, 2008). Future projects include an edition of Grim the Collier of Croydon for Digital Renaissance Editions. Email: r.booth@rhul.ac.uk; website: http://www.rhul.ac.uk/English/about-us/Staff/Booth/About-us-Booth.html

Deana Rankin, MA (University of Ulster), MA, D.Phil (Oxon). Lecturer in English and Drama at Royal Holloway, Fellow of Girton College, Cambridge. Chief research interests are in Shakespeare, Renaissance and seventeenth-century drama - including Shakespeare in performance and film, classical republicanism in early modern France and Britain, and modern British and Irish drama. She is the author of Between Spenser and Swift: English Writing in Seventeenth-Century Ireland (CUP, 2005) and a number of articles on early modern drama, including the work of Katherine Philips and Elizabeth Cary. She serves on the editorial board for a series of texts from early modern Ireland published by Four Courts Press, Dublin in which her edition of Henry Burnell’s Landgartha: A Tragie-Comedy (Dublin, 1641) will appear in 2009. She has also published on military handbooks and the historiography of seventeenth-century Ireland. She is currently working on a study of the representation of assassins and assassination on the early modern English stage. Formerly a theatre manager, she maintains strong links with the Royal Shakespeare Company’s education department. Email: deana.rankin@rhul.ac.uk

Sean McEvoy, MA (Cantab), MA (Sussex), PhD (London) is International Baccalaureate Co-ordinator at Varndean Sixth Form College in Brighton and a Visiting Lecturer at Royal Holloway. He is the author of Shakespeare: The Basics, 2nd edn (Routledge, 2006), ‘Hamlet’: A Sourcebook (Routledge, 2005) and Ben Jonson: Renaissance Dramatist (Edinburgh University Press, 2008). He is also Series Editor of the Edinburgh Renaissance Dramatists series. Research interests include the study of theatrical representation in early modern drama. Email: spm@varndean.ac.uk