[NEW COURSE] [MULTI-PART SERIES] Shakespeare is justly celebrated as a great poet and dramatist and often revered as the greatest writer in the English language. But do his plays have any larger purpose, message, or intention? What are his plays really about? What is rotten in the state of Denmark, after all, just Hamlet wreaking havoc? Why, for example, does this include accusing his mother of incest? What do all those enchanting fairies and mythical Athenians have to do with the mundane love story in A Midsummer Night’s Dream? And how does the mechanicals’ farcical performance of “Pyramus & Thisbe” performance bear on it? What’s Shakespeare trying to say by way of these oddities? Relying on a close consideration of Shakespeare’s texts, this course explores whether and how these features point to Shakespeare as not just a “mere” playwright but a great thinker with big ideas as well. The course is in two parts, which may be taken together or separately, the first scheduled for seven weeks during the summer and the second during 12 weeks in the fall. We carefully will be reading Merchant of Venice, Hamlet, and Richard II. Everyone is encouraged to read or re-read the plays (all available online) as necessary. Discussion, Lecture, Reading