Selected Reading in Drama/ Dr. Ya-Chi Prisca Chiu
Course Description
This course aims to explore several major turning points in the development of Western drama. Through the close reading and critical analysis of canonical plays, students will examine how drama represents human thoughts and emotions in response to fate, desire, family relationships, social conventions, and existential dilemmas.
The course focuses primarily on Greek tragedy, the emergence of modern drama in the late nineteenth century, and the development of modern and postwar theatre in the twentieth century. Selected works include plays by major dramatists such as Euripides, Sophocles, Henrik Ibsen, Eugene O’Neill, Samuel Beckett, and Harold Pinter. Through these texts, the course examines the transformation of Western drama from tragedies of fate to psychological tragedies, social critiques, and existential or absurdist theatre.
Rather than attempting to provide a comprehensive chronological survey of the entire history of drama, this course centers on the transformation of the tragic tradition. Through comparative study across different historical periods, students will explore how playwrights have reinterpreted fundamental questions concerning the relationship between human beings and the gods, individuals and families, individuals and society, and the meaning of human existence.
This course intentionally does not repeat certain periods and authors that are extensively covered in other courses, such as Shakespeare’s Renaissance drama, Renaissance tragedy, and selected canonical works of British and American literature. These topics are usually addressed in courses such as British Literary History, Shakespearean Drama, and Selected Readings in British and American Literature. Therefore, this course adopts a thematic approach rather than a comprehensive chronological survey, focusing instead on key dramatic transitions and the evolution of tragedy from classical to modern forms.
Oedipus Rex/Sophocles
Hippolytus/ Euripides
The Doll’s House/ Henrik Ibsen
Desire Under the Elms/ Eugene O’Neill
Long Day’s Journey Into Night/ O’Neill
Waiting for Godot/ Samuel Beckett
Happy Days/ Samuel Beckett
