Module description
The Early Modern period in England – by which we mean, very roughly, 1550-1660 – was a time of immense intellectual, geographical and literary expansion. The period offers us a double perspective: looking back to classical learning and achievement and using that as a model for the present, and offering us a glance forward to what we now think of as ‘the modern’ – that is, modern subjectivities, sexualities, politics and cultures. This module is designed to introduce texts from a period that stretched from the reign of Henry VIII to the English Civil War, with a focus on the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I. The intellectual ferment of the time – the politics of court and emergent colonialism, the rise of capitalism, the scientific revolution, the growth of English nationalism, the Reformation – is inseparable from the literature of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. ‘Early Modern Literary Culture’ tracks the creative intersection of individual writers, literary forms and the spirit of the age, and opens up a set of new magnificent texts for you to immerse yourselves in, through which you will develop a sense of the culture out of which they emerged. The primary texts studied in this module are chosen to reflect a broad generic range typical of the Renaissance, including prose, drama, masque and lyric and epic poetry.
Assessment details
Commonplace book (15%); 1 x 3 hour prior disclosure examination (85%)
Teaching pattern
One hour lecture and seminar weekly
Suggested reading list
Ideal preparation for this module would include beginning to acquaint yourself with the two largest works we'll be studying, Edmund Spenser's 'Faerie Queene' (Book I) and John Milton's 'Paradise Lost' (Book 9). Both are best read in the Longman Annotated Poets editions.