LIT 314 Shakespeare and Justice

3 hours 

This course examines Shakespeare's representation of justice in its connections to social and political order, crime and the law. The investigation will be both historical, situated within early modern understandings of justice; and aesthetic, situated within Shakespeare's dramatic vocabularies. What are the connections between poetic justice and legal, social and religious justice? How do such connections order plot, character, and structure? And finally: how do Shakespeare's representations of justice and injustice support or challenge early modern ideas of justice? Students will explore these questions through close analysis of selected plays and affiliated historical readings, and through their performance of scenes key to Shakespeare's articulations of justice.