The course will guide the students through a detailed close reading and analysis of the text of Hamlet by William Shakespeare. This text will serve as a source of comparison with some contemporary Italian parodies ( Petrolini, Totò, Carmelo Bene) and a few film versions,ranging from the era of silent films to cartoons, to the movie by Kenneth Branagh. A thorough grasp of variables and invariables in the structure of the texts of the different versions of Hamlet will allow the students to define the personalities of the characters of the play and to list and describe their connotations in order to make them “live” their own story. Each student, after discussion and confrontation in class, will then choose a character who will become the “actor”of a brief dramatized sketch.
Class reading- textbooks:
William Shakespeare, Hamle ( any good bilingual edition: Rizzoli, Garzanti, Mondadori, Feltrinelli)
S. Manferlotti, Amleto in parodia, Roma,. Bulzoni, 2005
Bibliography:
M. D’Amico, Scena e parola in Shakespeare, Roma, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura (nuova ed. 2007)
R. Severi, Teaching Hamlet (Insegnare Amleto). Proposta metodologica e didattica, CPE, San Prospero, Modena, 1985
F. Marotti, Amleto o dell’oxymoron, Roma, Bulzoni, 1966, pp. 117-290
Ombra di un’ombra. Amleto e i suoi fantasmi, a cura di L. Curti, Napoli, Istituto Universitario Orientale, 1994
Hamlet dal testo alla scena, a cura di M. Tempera, Bologna, Clueb, 1990
R. Severi, Per un “Amleto” garibaldino: il melodramma di Franco Faccio con libretto di Arrigo Boito, in L’Italie dans l’Europe Romantique, a cura di A. Poli e E. Kanceff, Moncalieri , CIRVI, vol. 2, pp. 660-674.
The exam is written and oral. The attending and non-attending students will have to discuss and present their individual playlets. Non-attending students, besides the required class-reading, will also have to study R. Severi, Teaching Hamlet and M. D’Amico, Scena e parola in Shakespeare, chapter 3, pp. 85-125.
