The Blown Syllabus

I had my second day of my seminar today, and it looks like I've already totally blown the syllabus.

We were supposed to begin discussing Selimus. We discussed... the title pages from the 1594 and 1630s printings, and the look of the first pages (look, ma, no character list! no setting information, no Act/scene demarkations).

And we started in on the prologue, which is a sonnet.

The play has 29 scenes, and we didn't even look at scene 1.

The play has a bloodbath of violent murders, and we didn't get beyond the three mentioned in the prologue.

We did set up the early modern theater a bit, so it wasn't like we were just twiddling our thumbs. But still, there's murder and mayhem, and we hardly got started on it.

The good news: I'm pretty much prepped for the next part of our discussion (the opening scene, because I want them to think about some stage convention stuff, and it starts with a soliloquy). And then we'll start talking about some specific passages and get into the real fun.