I am just coming to the end of my first week on the new MOOC I am studying, a free on-line course; this is about Shakespeare and his world. having studied Shakespeare throughout my education, and read and seen many of his plays outside of the classroom, I thought I would be interested in brushing up on what I had leaned in the past, and hoped to learn something new too.
The first week of the course is giving some background to the study; there have been a selection of excellent videos by the professor leading the course, Jonathan Bate of Warwick University. There are links to other resources many of which I have explored, including an interesting blog:
http://findingshakespeare.co.uk/
As you might imagine the first week has delivered information about Shakespeare himself, and put him in the context of his age, his society, and the world of Stratford-upon-Avon where he was born and lived, and London where he lived and worked. Already I have gained great insight I to the way he worked, often collaboratively as well as alone, in a team of writers and actors mush as scriptwriters do today for film and TV.
Next week we are studying ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor’, a play I do not know at all. I have started reading it and look forward to learning more about it and what it reveals about Shakespeare himself and his world.
https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/shakespeare-and-his-world/
Lois Elsden 