A Didactic Exploration of Literary Theories: Teaching a Course on Shakespeare’s Sonnets

Approaches to teaching literature are varied and it can become a strenuous task for classroom practitioners to select the one that best fits the educational context, adheres to the curriculum requirements and addresses learners’ needs. The purpose of this thesis is to explore whether literary theory with its various modes of analysis can be used as a basis for teaching English literature. By investigating the methodological tools of three literary theories, namely hermeneutics, narratology and empiricism, and outlining the algorithms for the corresponding analyses that can be carried out to study literary works, this thesis aspires to contribute to the solution of the above-mentioned task. The practical component of this work is two-fold. First, it uses Shakespeare’s Sonnets as the material for the application of the literary theories, thus demonstrating how the proposed methodology benefits both Shakespeare studies and early modern English literature studies at large. Second, the theoretical and analytical findings obtained in this research are then used for the development of a graduate-level course of study that can serve as a model and foundation for further scholarly investigations in the field of literature teaching.