This introductory module offers students the opportunity to study Shakespeare's plays in their original theatrical and historical contexts. The teaching is delivered as lectures followed by small-group seminars. Lectures combine close reading of the texts with video clips of productions, to encourage the students to read the plays not just as words on the page but as live events in the theatre. The small-group seminars concentrate on close reading. The assessments ask you to analyse and contextualise selected passages from the plays and to write essays based on analysis of particular scenes.