King's College London

Our Early Modern English Literature MA is an innovative and exciting partnership between the Department of English at King’s and the British Library. The course focuses on the transmission of key early modern literary texts, investigating both the circulation of literary texts in manuscript and print and the way they were received. You will learn to read early modern handwriting, to transcribe neglected literary manuscripts and rare printed texts, and to edit them for the modern reader.

In focusing on transmission alongside more traditional literary approaches, the course explores the impact of the materiality of the text and of the material conditions of its (re)production on the way it is interpreted. The Life of the Book: Constructing Knowledge at the British Library, a module taught at the British Library, will allow access to early modern print and manuscript material with a focus on the factors and people involved in their production, transmission and preservation in libraries and private collections.

Taught in exclusive partnership with the British Library, this Early Modern English Literature MA: Books That Matter focuses on the transmission of key early modern literary texts to investigate their circulation, print, and reception. This allows you to explore the impact of the materiality of the text and the material conditions of its (re)production on how it is interpreted.

You’ll join one of the strongest departments in the country for early modern literature, and learn directly from world-leading experts in Shakespeare, Milton, Donne, early modern women poets, and many other major dramatists, poets, and prose writers, in editing, book-history, and palaeography. It’s an exciting opportunity to learn from world-leading academics about innovative literary methods, including the politics of literary form, ecocritical studies, and intersectional approaches to issues of race, gender, and class.

During this MA you will cover the period of literary history from the reign of Henry VIII through the period Shakespeare was writing, and through the Civil War up to the Restoration, when Milton was composing Paradise Lost. And you’ll get to study this in the very same city they were based, giving you first-hand experience of the capital. This also means you can enjoy field trips to nearby libraries and archives, at places like Shakespeare’s Globe, St Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, and the National Archives.

This Early Modern English Literature master’s will teach you a range of skills that will empower you to explore archives independently, such as how to read early modern handwriting from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. You’ll learn how to spot what was once folded and sent as a letter or how to transcribe neglected manuscripts and rare printed texts. You’ll also discover how to re-read these texts to apply contemporary theoretical perspectives and how you can edit them for modern readers.

The first required module of this master’s in Early Modern English Literature will explore how to work with early modern literary texts and provides a grounding in the research methodologies you’ll need to use in your dissertation later. You’ll consider the developments and changes in the critical study of early modern texts over the last fifty years or so, then learn more about how these texts were disseminated to their target audiences. Every lesson will be centred on a case study of texts like Shakespeare’s Othello, Middleton's 'Hengist King of Kent', or Ford’s '’Tis Pity She’s a Whore'.

The British Library will teach another required module all about the ‘Life of the Book’. You’ll get to look at rare original books with an expert Curator, who will help you understand the mechanics of how a book is made. You’ll also think about the economics and practicalities of the book trade and start to familiarise yourself with the British Library’s vast collections.

You’ll also get to choose a couple of optional modules and tailor your syllabus. For example, you could look at the period’s ‘Contested Voices’ and study topics like competing Catholic and Protestant literature during the Reformation or how the role of women was vigorously debated. You could also consider the relations of theatre, gender and culture in Jacobean London, or explore the poetic movements and moods of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, or use geographical questions of place to study recent productions of Shakespeare.

The final Early Modern English Literature MA module will help you prepare for your dissertation over the year. Through skills workshops, advanced research seminars and one-on-one supervision, you’ll be supported in outlining your dissertation’s focus and then get to present some aspect of your project at a colloquium or conference.