OVERVIEW
In this module, you’ll have the chance to think about how performances shape and reshape texts, working with William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. We'll be focusing intensively on this play over the module's five main parts, which explore how to read and analyze Shakespeare, how to analyze drama and performance, and how to design and produce a dramatic scene.
Our goal for this module is to help you take ownership over the material so that you will feel confident in reading and enjoying Shakespeare. This module will also give you the tools you need to put your knowledge of Shakespeare and the stage into action by producing a scene of your own. You don’t need any previous experience with drama or with Shakespeare—just a willingness to pay attention to language and to learn more about performance.
WHAT TO EXPECT
Work in this module includes a number of different activities:
- Readings and videos: In addition to reading The Merchant of Venice (more than once!), each part will also have shorter readings, with information that will help you contextualize and better understand the course’s topics. These readings will be supplemented with short instructional videos, interviews, and clips from several productions of the play—not only from live theater, but also from film and television.
- Annotations: There will be several chances for you to annotate Merchant, including some short passages to practice close reading, as well as guided thematic annotation across the whole play and staging notes for the scene you will perform. You can also feel free to use our installation of the module annotation tool, Annotation Studio, to make notes and jot down further questions on your own.
- Questions and quizzes: There will be several short reading activities that will give you guided practice in observing important features of Shakespeare’s texts; this module also has a number of quizzes and comprehension checks that will help make sure you understand core concepts and ask you to think about significant aspects of the play. It is important to remember that these quizzes are not graded and you can check your answers as many times as you like. Instead of just trying to figure out the right answer, think about all of the options and consider what each question might reveal about our readings. We encourage you to check multiple answers to see the feedback each provides.
- Discussion forum posts: Our discussion forum will be your main opportunity to communicate with other students. Please be respectful at all times, even if you disagree with someone, and remember that this play will raise some sensitive topics. The most successful discussion forums posts are brief, but substantive; please read through other students’ posts and consider replying, rather than starting a new topic. The module team will be reviewing the discussion forums and will moderate the comments if necessary.
- Final performances: In the final assignment for this module, you will prepare a short scene from Merchant; you will film this scene twice—once in a location of your own choosing, and once in front of a live audience. Together, these performances and your reflections are your opportunity to stake your own claim for how you think the play might be performed, as well as show how you have been thinking about performance, Merchant, and the topics raised by the play.
Because this module is self-guided and self-assessed, it will be up to you to set personal goals and work on accomplishing them. This is not a course that focuses on lectures and tests; instead, you will complete activities that will help you to think through our key concepts—with some instruction through videos and readings to get you started. We will also share interviews and rehearsal and performance footage from The Merchant in Venice, which was performed in the Venetian Ghetto in the summer of 2016, as well as performance footage from several other stagings, so you will have a chance to see the play in action and hear from people with experience in staging Shakespeare.
We have collected links to a wide range of resources we think you may find helpful or interesting; you’ll find these through our Resources tab, as well as linked within pages and sections of the course where they are particularly relevant.
READINGS
You are free to use any version of The Merchant of Venice you like for this module. There are several free versions online, including the Folger Digital Texts edition that is included on the course site for you to read and annotate online. You can access and download other formats of the Folger edition at their site. You may also choose to read the version published by the Internet Shakespeare Editions project, or even read the First Folio online with page images and a transcription made available through the Bodleian Library.
One thing all of these editions have in common is that they do not contain any explanatory notes, which can often be very helpful. If you would prefer to read an annotated version, there are several excellent scholarly editions of The Merchant of Venice—many of which are available as relatively inexpensive paperbacks. You might also consider using WorldCat to help you find a copy in your local library. In addition to the Folger edition we have added as a course textbook, we will sometimes make reference to the Norton Critical Edition, which includes scholarly essays and historical sources as well as explanatory annotations. However, no matter which edition you choose to read, you can use the play's act, scene, and line numbers to navigate.
COURSE TEAM
Professor Diana Henderson
Erica Zimmer, instructional designer
Cathleen Nalezyty, instructional and video designer
Sarah Connell, instructional designer
Shelly Upton, educational technologist
Kyle Boots, educational technologist
Douglass McLean, video designer
We would also like to thank professors Eugenie Brinkema, Shankar Raman, Yu Jin Ko, and Diego Arciniegas; Daniel Epelbaum; Jana Dambrogio; the entire cast and crew of The Merchant in Venice; the Council for the Arts at MIT (CAMIT); the Office of Open Learning at MIT; the MIT Global Shakespeares Video & Performance Archive; the Literature Section at MIT; the Annotation Studio team; Ted Hardin and Elizabeth Coffman; and all of our interview subjects and beta testers for their assistance and support in creating this module.
COURSE TIMELINE
This course is self-directed and self-paced. All materials are posted and available, and while you can follow its pages sequentially, we encourage you to explore as best meets your interests and educational goals. The module is organized as follows:
- Part 1: Reading Drama and Poetry
- Part 2: The Merchant of Venice and Close Reading
- Part 3: Productions of The Merchant of Venice
- Part 4: Designing Your Own Productions
- Part 5: Preparing for Live Performance
GETTING HELP
If you find that a video doesn’t play after a minute or two, try reloading or refreshing the page. If you find yourself with questions or encounter any challenges as you're working your way through the course, please post to the Questions and Challenges discussion board forum.
EVALUATION
This module is not graded. You will need to define your own version of what success looks like and be responsible for your own learning. Ideally, all students will take advantage of the varied ways of learning this module offers and work toward the final project of creating a performance video to share. The outcomes we are working toward together will be appreciation for Shakespeare from the "inside out," confidence in enjoying the plays, and continued learning and application of the tools you will master after the module has ended.