For Thursday: Read Chapter 1 of Poole's Tragedy: A Very Short Introduction

Welcome to the course! This semester, we'll be reading four of Shakespeare's tragedies of kings, queens, and traitors, and usurpers, in order to ask the question, "what does Shakespeare mean by tragedy?" Is he following our definition--or Aristotle's? Or none of the above? Since most of how we define tragedy, at least in the dramatic arts, comes from Shakespeare, we'll pay close attention to what stories he chooses (since he rarely makes them up), what characters interest him the most, and whether or not his plays bring tragedy to its inevitable conclusion of death and catharsis. BE SURE to buy the books for class as soon as possible, especially Poole's Tragedy: A Very Short Introduction! You need it for Thursday's class. 

For Thursday, read Chapter One from Poole's book (it's pretty short) and bring it to class with you. We'll do a short in-class writing based on a central idea in this chapter. In the future, I'll have questions on the blog for you to answer, but I want to give you a sense of what kinds of question to expect for our first response, so we'll do it in class. If you have trouble getting the book please let me know, and I'll see if I can help out. 

See you in class!