I took the online version of this class over the summer. While I didn't interact with Allen directly, his recorded lectures were a treat to watch. He was extremely animated and exuberant about the subject matter, which made the class a lot more fun. We were reading a play a week, so if you have a difficult time understanding Shakespeare, I recommend looking into "No Fear Shakespear" which provides modern day translations of the text so you can spend more time dissecting themes and motifs, rather than trying to understand confusing prose. You'll get the hang of it! For the essays, there was a slight learning curve, but once I got feedback from my first essay, the subsequent papers were fairly easy to write and get As on. My biggest advice is: don't summarize, and even if you're going out on a really flimsy limb to make connections between plays, as long as you can convince the reader of your ideas, go for it! The beautiful thing about Shakespeare is that his writing is open to A LOT of interpretation. Have fun with it!

I loved Allen! He made all those Shakespeare plays I've read a million times come to life (Cheesy I know, but that's how it felt). His accent, his passion, everything just makes you feel like you could be in England. His grading wasn't too harsh as long as you went to class. His final was identifying passages. I would definitely recommend him and hope to take at least one more class with him before graduating.