THEA 387
Ibsen, Chekhov and the emergence of Modern drama
Last Offered Spring 2022
Division I
Cross-listed COMP 387 / ENGL 309
This course is not offered in the current catalog

This course will center on the plays of Henrik Ibsen and Anton Chekhov, key figures in the development of Modern European drama. Prospective readings will include Ibsen’s A Doll’s House (1879), The Wild Duck (1884), Rosmersholm (1886) and Hedda Gabler (1890); Chekhov’s The Seagull (1896), Uncle Vanya (1900), Three Sisters (1901) and The Cherry Orchard (1904): along with August Strindberg’s Creditors (1889) and Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband (1894). We will chart the development of dramatic realism and naturalism, and situate these plays in the context of the late-nineteenth century “ache of modernism”, with supplemental readings that highlight changing conceptions of identity and subjectivity, emerging strains and contestations over gender and sexuality, and the wider sociological, political and technological changes of the period. The course will also be centrally concerned with these playwrights’ innovative explorations of the investigations of theatre’s capacities and limitations in representing social reality and the ‘performance’ of selfhood.