HENB01155U English - Elective subject 4, topic 5: Shakespeare’s Romans

Shakespeare’s Roman plays are a distinctive group which are often acted together in one programme, as was the case at the Globe theatre this summer. However, Shakespeare’s fascination with Roman history and culture is also apparent in other works – Portia in The Merchant of Venice is compared to Brutus’s wife of the same name, and Horatio tells the dying Hamlet “I am more an antique Roman than a Dane”. Furthermore,  one of Shakespeare’s early productions is the narrative poem The Rape of Lucrece. In the repressive Elizabethan age, references to Roman politics provided a way to debate issues of government and gender, and of the complex relation between the personal and the political. We will read The Rape of Lucrece and the following plays: Titus Andronicus, Julius Caesar, Coriolanus, Antony and Cleopatra.