June 15:
The Comedy of Errors
Shakespeare's Sources
June 29:
The Winter’s Tale
Dramatic Unities
July 6:
NONE
July 13:
Henry VI, Parts 1, 2, and 3
History and Politics
July 20:
Antony and Cleopatra
Characterization and Time
July 27:
The Merry Wives of Windsor
Shared Characters
August 3:
Love’s Labour’s Lost
Theatricality
Throughout five years of course offerings in English, the Scholars Online program covers a fair amount of Shakespeare. A student who has taken World Literature, English Literature, and AP English will have read:
I have not yet figured out a legitimate way of incorporating Shakespeare into either Western Literature to Dante or American Literature. Failing some major historical upheaval, I suspect that this will not change.
Accordingly, a student can read eight or nine plays. While this certainly represents a good deal more Shakespeare than the average high school student will study formally, still, as Harold Bloom argues, Shakespeare has a unique place at the center of the Western literary canon, and it is nearly impossible to get too much of him.
Accordingly, this course is designed to follow Summer Shakespeare I in filling in some of the larger gaps in our Shakespeare offerings. We will cover, at the rate of one per week (and three one week), a total of ten more plays, thus considerably augmenting the number a student has before college. Of course, at this pace, we cannot even pretend to be exhaustive — it’s intended to be a fun course in any case. But I am hoping that it will foster a cheerful familiarity with Shakespeare, and an awareness of the shape of his corpus as a whole. Taken together with the nine above, this will bring the student’s coverage to eighteen plays — more than half of Shakespeare’s total production. (Summer Shakespeare I provides another nine plays, bringing the total to twenty-eight, while Summer Shakespeare III completes the canon.)
Accordingly, this course will include:
Because time is at a premium during the summer, and we would like to accomplish as much as we possibly can, I’d like to hit the ground running with a play discussion the first week. Therefore, do not delay to enroll, and get the books as soon as possible.
Contents of this page © Copyright 2006, 2010, 2022 by Bruce A. McMenomy.
Permission to download or print this page is hereby given to students of Scholars Online currently enrolled in Summer Shakespeare II for purposes of personal study only. Any other reproduction or use for profit constitutes a violation of copyright.