History: Shakespeare and Shipwreck

This course will consider three plays which utilise the motif of ‘shipwreck’ as a central device in their plots. Shipwreck serves as a figure for the unexpected and unfair reversal of fortune, and the challenges which those who suffer it face to make new lives, or somehow to continue their previous lives, having endured what seems to be total, desolating loss. Shipwreck is thus a motif which asks profound questions about character, about the nature of endings, and the struggle to make new beginnings.

The plays are from the middle and later part of Shakespeare’s career: ‘Twelfth Night’; ‘Pericles’; and ‘The Tempest’ respectively. Each draws on shipwreck as an element drawn from the genre of romance, and incorporates this, in varying degrees from play to play, with elements drawn from comedy. We will explore this generic mix, and consider how the tensions between them enrich and complicate the plots, tones and outcomes of each play.

We will place each play in its original historical and dramatic context, and also consider how each relates to Shakespeare's developing approach to genre. We will look at each work in detail, both on the page and (using clips from DVDs) on the stage, to build up a richer understanding of Shakespeare's experiments with genre at the middle and later periods of his career.