EXILES, REFUGEES AND DEAD QUEENS

EXILES, REFUGEES AND DEAD QUEENS
Professor Laura Levine
lauraellenlevine@outlook.com
THEA_UT 801.002 ~ 4 credits
Tuesday 3:15 p.m. – 5:45 p.m.

When Virgil’s lovers Dido and Aeneas meet, they are both refugees, Dido, Queen of Carthage, a refugee from the city of Tyre, Aeneas one of the few survivors of the Trojan War. But where Aeneas goes on to found Rome, Dido is a suicide, her funeral pyre the last thing Aeneas sees as he sails away from Carthage, her death the cost of empire.  How does Elena Ferrante redefine the Dido story in My Brilliant Friend, a novel which depicts the rise of neo-fascism in post-war Italy? What is the iconic significance of a dead queen in the epic or in Shakespeare’s appropriation of the figure? In what way is the “dead” queen Hermione in The Winter’s Tale a flash point for religious tensions and anxieties about witchcraft? And how is Christopher Wheeldon’s ballet of The Winter’s Tale a revision of the problems Shakespeare presents?

In its interest in Shakespeare as an adapter of earlier texts, this course may be especially useful for students with an interest in RADA or The Classical Studio. Students with backgrounds or interests in ballet, art history, opera, and the classics are particularly welcome, but these are in no way a prerequisite for the course. Examples of projects that might grow out of the course could include connections between Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth or Elizabeth and Dido (also called “Elissa”), dramatic and operatic adaptations of The Aeneid, Shakespeare ballets, and many others. Students need to hold reading day for an extra meeting as well as the hour after class twice after spring break. Admission by application and interview. Please send applications and any questions embedded in the body of the text as cut and paste documents to lauraellenlevine@outlook.com (no attachments, pdfs, google docs, zip files etc.). All classes online via Zoom, drama majors only.