ENGL 3271

Awesome!! Professor Maus is evidently a leading American expert on Shakespeare, as her lectures were pure genius and she was one of the editors of the Norton edition of Shakespeare that we used throughout the semester (it is the only book you need!). Every time I came to lecture I felt like I understood so much more about the text than what I was seeing. The reading itself (of 8 plays) was captivating, and this class has certainly instilled in me a newfound love of Shakespeare. My TA Viola Cozzio was also fantastic—extremely knowledgeable, forgiving, and fun. The class's 3 essays were fairly difficult, at least for me, because Viola held us to such a high standard—but I am glad for this. They certainly pushed me to a new level of literature analysis. Discussion in section was easy and fun, as we would just analyze in depth a passage that Viola has selected. The final exam required plenty of studying, as it had us identify passages and then write two essays, but ultimately it wasn't too bad. I cannot recommend this class enough. #tCFF23

This course is an absolute MUST if you love Shakespeare. Histories and Comedies in particular introduces you to some of Shakespeare's less often discussed works, and I found a few new favorites that I may not have read otherwise (Richard II is phenomenal you guys). Professor Maus is delightful and lectures fly by. The only readings you do are the plays themselves, usually over the course of 3 or 4 lectures. Keeping up with the reading is helpful, but if you get a bit behind it's totally fine because Professor Maus gives plenty of context with her analysis. There were 3 5-page papers and a final that consisted of passage IDs specific to each discussion section and two essays, each worth 25%. The IDs were all passages mentioned in lecture and discussion, so as long as you make note of them throughout the semester, you'll be fine. Discussion was a lot more about close readings and was definitely helpful in supplementing lectures. Lloyd was a fantastic TA. He met with me to work on every essay and even sent us memes on the listserv. What a legend. Anyways, this class was great and pretty easy. I took it my first semester and was totally fine, and I imagine 2/3/4th years would have an even easier time.