Guided Elective: pre-1700

Instructor: David Levine Spring 2027 TBD | Location: TBD Spring 2026 Tuesday, 12:00-2:45pm | Location: TBD Enrollment: Limited to 14 students Students will gain facility with reading, speaking, performing, and directing Shakespeare through a simple task...

Instructor: Nicholas Watson Spring 2027 TBD | Location: TBD Spring 2026 Thursday, 9:45-11:45am | Location: TBD Enrollment: Limited to 15 students Medieval romances are ancestors of the modern novel, including the psychological novel and the fictions we...

Instructor: Gordon Teskey Monday, 12:45-2:45pm | Location: TBD Enrollment: Limited to 15 students How did Shakespeare’s art develop in the years following Hamlet (1600-1601), which ends with a roar of cannons, warning of great tragedies to come? The...

Instructor: Leah Whittington TBD | Location: TBD Enrollment: Limited to 15 students This course traces the reception of Ovid’s Metamorphoses through the diverse responses of Petrarch, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Spenser, Milton and Dryden, exploring how...

Instructor: Gordon Teskey Monday, 3:45-5:45 | Location: TBD Enrollment: Limited to 15 students. Shakespeare’s career in playwriting (1589-1611) divides into two creative phases, each one lasting a decade. At the center is his most famous play, Hamlet...

Instructor: Stephen Greenblatt Tuesday & Thursday, 1:30-2:45pm | Location: TBD We will begin with Shakespeare's brilliant early history play, Richard III , and read works from the full course of his career, sampling all of his major genres: comedies...

Instructor: Nicholas Watson Fall 2026 Wednesday, 9:00-11:45am | Location: TBD Spring 2026 Wednesday, 9:45-11:45 am | Location: TBD Enrollment: Limited to 15 students Julian of Norwich (born 1343) and Margery Kempe of Lynn (born 1373) are the two earliest...

Instructor: Alan Niles Tuesday & Thursday, 12:00-1:15 pm | Location: Please login to the course catalog at my.harvard.edu for location Course Site This class is an introduction to Shakespeare’s writings and their representations of sex, gender, romance...

Instructor: Joseph A. Shack Tuesday & Thursday, 10:30-11:45 am | Location: Please login to the course catalog at my.harvard.edu for location Course Site Translations of excerpts from Beowulf will proceed in parallel with careful reading of Heaney's verse...

Instructor: Daniel Donoghue Tuesday, 12:45-2:45pm | Location: TBD Enrollment: Limited to 15 students J. R. R. Tolkien's day job at Oxford was professor of medieval English literature. Throughout his career he cultivated a deep acquaintance with early...