2025 SPRING
2025 Spring
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Shakespeare’s Tragic Heroines I
Instructor: Linda Pfaffinger
Fridays • 3/21-4/11 • 1:00 PM-3:00 PM
Class size 5-20 students
14 seats remaining
Location: Jewett 190
Shakespeare’s Tragic Heroines I
Shakespeare’s tragic heroines are generally well known. How many plays and films have been made with Shakespearean heroines as simply support characters to the predestined featured hero? Think about Macbeth and Hamlet, King Lear or other tragic heroes penned by the greatest playwright in modern 
history. Let’s take a closer look at their female counterparts and discuss each one’s contribution to the plot, the theme or the setting. In this course, we will learn more about Desdemona, from Orthello, and Juliet, from Romeo & Juliet, from the eyes of the playwright and the modern world.
Students may use Shakespeare’s original plays or No Fear Shakespeare which has modern English beside the old English, available in paperback format at Barnes and Noble Bookstore and others. Class will include discussion and minimal home study.
Linda Pfaffinger is a graduate from the University of Southern Maine where she excelled. She went on to receive her Master’s degree in Social Work from Simmons College in Boston. Linda recently retired from the USM faculty as an adjunct in the Criminology Department where she taught for over 20 years. Her professional career included roles from an advocate to a trainer to an Executive Director in community agencies as well as many years working in her own practice. She has always been a fan of British literature, especially Shakespeare since her younger years.