Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Shakespeare’s Plays and the Book that Saved Them

Join us for a comprehensive tour through the writing life and theatrical legacy of William Shakespeare.

Taking its cue from the First Folio (1623), the book that preserved many of Shakespeare’s plays for posterity, the course spends one week on each of the main genres in which the author wrote and introduces students to key questions raised by plays such as The Tempest, Twelfth Night, Richard III, Hamlet, and Othello, among others. It offers a lively overview of the major plays of Shakespeare’s career and the critical questions that shape how we read them today, while giving students the chance to engage with the material conditions of Shakespeare’s world. The course includes trips to the playwright’s birthplace and grave in Stratford-upon-Avon, classroom sessions in the Bodleian Library in which students can view Shakespeare’s original early printed books, and the opportunity to see a performance of a Shakespeare play.

I joined Lady Margaret Hall as Career Development Fellow in English Literature in October 2021 after training at Exeter University and the University of Oxford. I have held lectureships at Corpus Christi College, Lincoln College, and the University of London, and research fellowships at the Huntington Library and the Folger Library among others. My first monograph, Shakespeare’s Syndicate: The First Folio, its Publishers, and the Early Modern Book Trade, is published by Oxford University Press in March 2022.

For more information, see Dr Higgins' profile on the LMH College website