Classics: Shakespeare and Classics

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Minimum sophomore standing PACE students with permission and override Special Topics courses cannot carry CC designations

Ben Jonson might have written that Shakespeare had "small Latine and less Greek," but we shall investigate the Swan of Avon's classical background and how it inspired and underpinned many of his most famous plays. Over the course of the semester we will engage the classical authors of Shakespeare's milieu (such as Plautus, Plutarch, Ovid, Seneca, and Virgil) and examine how they gave rise to clearly classical plays such as "Julius Caesar," "Antony and Cleopatra," "The Comedy of Errors," and "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and also to more subtle treatments such as "Much Ado About Nothing" and "The Winter's Tale."