Spring 2013 Undergraduate Level Courses 300 - 699

ENGL 302 Topics in British Literature since 1800: British Drama from Wilde to Stoppard. Instr. R Elliott. 11:00 MW. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Great Britain, though its empire was at its zenith, was a theatrical backwater. The innovative plays of Ibsen, Strindberg, and other Continental playwrights had only begun to have an impact, and the popular stage was awash in stilted melodrama and mindless farce. Plenty of melodrama and farce can still be found in London’s West End, but, a century later, British theatre is also universally admired for its productions of literate classical and contemporary drama. How did this transformation take place? In this course, we will study the works of some 12-15 20 th -and 21st-century English and Irish playwrights and trace both their thoughtful response to European dramatic movements and their leading role in developing a significant dramatic tradition of their own. We will examine plays by Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, Noel Coward, Harold Pinter, Caryl Churchill, and Tom Stoppard, among others. Assignments will include two papers of moderate length and a creative project. There will also be a midterm and final examination. This course fulfills the English 314 or equivalent requirement for the English major.