Humanities strand: Shakespeare's World Event
For more information regarding this event, please email Naomi Clements at outreach@soton.ac.uk .
Event details
This event will focus heavily on English Literature. Workshops will provide students with the opportunity to discuss if Shakespearian language is still relevant in the 21st Century and take part in a number of interactive activities.
This event is aimed to engage Year 12 students with current research at the University of Southampton, unfortunately we are not able to accept individual bookings but student must attend with a group and teacher from their college or 6th form. This is event is now fully booked.
See below for an overview of each workshop at this event.
Workshop A - Is Shakespeare relevant in the 21st Century?Shak
The aim of this workshop is to show how pertinent and lacking in elitism espeare can be. I will discuss Bernard Levin's piece on the use of Shakespearean phrases in common usage today - showing how the language continues to pervade modern speech. I will then use Kent's insult to Oswald in King Lear as a starting point for students to construct their own insults, using a glossary of Shakespearean words and their modern meanings.
Workshop B - Translating Sonnets
This workshop will explore Shakespeare's use of the sonnet form and the notion of ‘translation'. I will use three sonnets from Romeo and Juliet, as well as several celebrated sonnets from Shakespeare's sonnet cycle. After a brief introduction regarding the history of the sonnet form, students will be divided into pairs and given a different Shakespearean sonnet. Students will ‘translate' their sonnet into contemporary English. The students can choose whether to use slang, regional dialect, online jargon or whichever mode of English they think to be most appropriate.