ENGL 6010 Seminar: Shakespeare: Truth and Lies

Fulfills the pre-1700 requirement for undergrads. Also fulfills the Seminar requirement. Undergrad/Grad Level: Restricted to Juniors, Seniors, and Graduate Students. Shakespeare lived and wrote at a time when the ideas about what was true, and how to determine what was true, were changing. The Protestant reformation, invention of the printing press, humanist education, exploration and colonialism, and the beginnings of the scientific revolution all motivated people to focus on questions of truth, falsehood, and epistemology. Although newspapers were just beginning to be invented near the end of Shakespeare's life, his plays are obsessed with fake news, how to tell if people are lying, how to figure out what is true. In this course we will read a selection of Shakespeare's comedies, histories, tragedies, and romances with a focus on how truth and lies are represented. We will also consider the history of various conspiracy theories that have tried to establish that William Shakespeare did not write the plays attributed to him.