Each lecture in this series focuses on a single play by Shakespeare, and employs a range of different approaches to try to understand a central critical question about it. Rather than providing overarching readings or interpretations, the series aims to show the variety of different ways we might understand Shakespeare, the kinds of evidence that might be used to strengthen our critical analysis, and, above all, the enjoyable and unavoidable fact that Shakespeare's plays tend to generate our questions rather than answer them.

The goals of this class are two-fold: the first is to experience the creative processes and storytelling behind several of theater’s arts and to acquire the analytical skills necessary in assessing the meaning they transmit when they come together in production. Secondly, we will introduce you to these languages in a creative way by giving you hands-on experience in each. To that end, several Visiting Artists and MIT faculty in Theater Arts will guest lecture, lead workshops, and give you practical instruction in their individual art forms.

Description:Transform your students into anthropologists as a gateway to Macbeth.Students answer prediction questions using evidence from the artifacts. (Artifacts include images, letters from the text, and character maps.)Students can complete this activity alone or in breakout groups.  

This is a lesson plan which requires students to use part of the DSM-5 (specifically the section on Narcissistic Personality Disorder) to fill out a Psychological Assessment Diagnostic Report on Macbeth as having NPD using textual evidence.

A short quiz on CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.3, featuring a passage from Shakespeare's Macbeth. The passage has a Dale-Chall text difficulty level of 7-8, and a Flesch-Kincaid level of 7.0. (However, these metrics are not designed for poetry.)

A short quiz on CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.3, featuring a passage from Shakespeare's Macbeth. The passage has a Dale-Chall text difficulty level of 7-8, and a Flesch-Kincaid level of 7.0. (However, these metrics are not designed for poetry.)

Course description: Provides a sampling of Shakespeare’s contributions to the three primary genres of early modern theater with a focus on the later comedies, tragedies, histories, and non-dramatic poetry. Introduces the study of Shakespeare’s dramatic techniques, character development, historical and cultural setting, and language. Explores interpretations of Shakespeare’s works by contemporary filmmakers. Prerequisite: MTH 20 or equivalent placement test scores. Prerequisite/concurrent: WR 121. Audit available.

This course explores the relationship between music and the supernatural, focusing on the social history and context of supernatural beliefs as reflected in key literary and musical works from 1600 to the present. It provides an understanding of the place of ambiguity and the role of interpretation in culture, science and art. Great works of art by Shakespeare, Verdi, Goethe (in translation), Gounod, Henry James and Benjamin Britten are explored, as well as readings from the most recent scholarship on magic and the supernatural.

This is a course on Shakespeare’s career, given at Brandeis University in the spring of 2010, by William Flesch. It covers several representative plays from all four genres: comedy, tragedy, history, and romance. We consider both the similarities and differences among those genres, and how his more and more radical experimentations in genre reflect his developing thought, about theater, about time, about life, over the course of his career. In terms of texts, any complete Shakespeare will suffice, including this free version online from MIT. The Norton Shakespeare, edited by Stephen Greenblatt, is also recommended.

The Folger Shakespeare Library provides the full searchable text of "Macbeth" to read online or download as a PDF. All of the lines are numbered sequentially to make it easier and more convenient to find any line.

This lesson asks students to dig into a select scene to examine the complex and stereotype-defying character of Lady Macbeth.

This lesson serves as a pre-reading activity for the play, Macbeth by William Shakespeare with a focus on gender roles and the portrayal of women in this famous play.