Index#: 07578
Will Count Towards English MAJOR
Will Count Towards English MINOR
This interdisciplinary seminar, which crosses the boundaries of literary criticism, history, and philosophy, will examine Shakespeare’s role in the “Renaissance cult of friendship,” a nearly obsessive appropriation and transformation of classical and medieval speculation about friendship by early-modern writers. We will consider the three major classical discussions, by Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero, and look briefly at some medieval and Renaissance representations, including Montaigne’s and Bacon’s essays on the subject. The center of our study will be Shakespeare’s sonnets and plays, most likely The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Merchant of Venice, Henry V, Othello, Timon of Athens, The Winter’s Tale, and The Two Noble Kinsmen. Among our questions: What impels the search for and contemplation of an alter ego? How is friendship (philia) to be distinguished from other modes of intimacy, especially erotic love, and how permeable are their boundaries? What kinds of friendship are possible between men? between women? How is friendship theory deployed in formulating the ideal of a “companionate marriage”? How might friendship supply a foundation for political order or become a threat to public life? Is friendship altruistic or an egoistic impulse masquerading as altruism? What is the relation between writing about friendship and early-modern concerns about subjectivity, solitude, and anxiety? Several philosophers, historians, and literary critics (Derrida, Bray, Pakaluk, Annas, A. W. Price, Cavell, Sedgwick, Nehamas) will spur our discussions. Background in Shakespeare and intellectual and social history will be helpful, but less important than curiosity and engagement.
About Professor Levao
Professor Levao's publications include: Selected Poems of Thomas Campion, Samuel Daniel, and Sir Walter Ralegh (2001); Renaissance Minds and Their Fictions: Cusanus, Sidney, Shakespeare (1985). He most recently edited the Longman Cultural Edition of Henry IV, Parts I & II (2006). Professor Levao has also authored the articles: "Among Unequals What Society: Paradise Lost and the Forms of Intimacy" (Modern Language Quarterly, 2000); "Francis Bacon and the Mobility of Science" (Representations, 1991); "Reading the Fights: Making Sense of Professional Boxing" (Raritan, 1986); and "Sidney's Feigned Apology" (PMLA, 1979).