This module explores a wide range of poetry, prose, and drama from the period 1500–1800, paying particular attention to the relationship between how the themes and genres of literary texts engage with their historical context. Thus, you are building upon the skills you already have in practical criticism (detailed reading of a few texts) toward developing skills in reading a wide range of complex texts – both primary texts and literary criticism -independently. The first half of the semester introduces early modern literature, concentrating particularly on the period sometimes called the Golden Age, 1580-1620. Literature is seen not as some fiddling ornament, but as fundamental to civil society. Following the tag ‘movere, docere, et delectare’, it aimed to move readers to want what was best, teach them to know what was best, and delight them in so doing. The latest and most fashionable literary forms (such as the sonnet, allegorical epic, tragedy, satire, eulogy, and devotional lyric) are used respond to pressing problems in politics and religion – problems which are controversial right now. Authors covered will include Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, and George Herbert.

The second half of the semester takes texts from the Restoration to the age of ‘Enlightenment’, 1660-1800. The rallying cry for this age of light was the Latin phrase sapere aude, meaning ‘dare to know’, and many of its greatest writers and thinkers challenged the boundaries of religious, philosophical, literary, and scientific thought. Authors range from the rebellious and revolutionary to the satirical and sentimental, all engaging with the role of the individual in society. The expressive means through which each of these writers ‘dared to know’ the self - and others – were evolved in rapidly changing world of professional authorship and literary production. Authors covered will include John Milton, Alexander Pope, Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and Mary Wollstonecraft.

· demonstrate an awareness of some of the key literary texts and contexts of literature from 1500-1800 (English Benchmark Statement 5.8)

· analyse this literature with critical skill, theoretical understanding, and a sense of historical context (EBS 5.9, 5.11)

· Analyse the relationship of individual passages to the overall structure of a text, in terms of theme, staging, and language (EBS 5.13)

· achieve scholarly standards of presentation and of writing accurately, clearly and effectively (EBS 5.15)

· 12 hours a week private study (reading the text set for that week, and reading criticism about it)

· 1 hour a week small group seminar (in which students advance their own readings of that week’s text)

· 2 hours a week lecture (in which the lecturer analyses the texts in their historical and cultural contexts)

English Benchmark Statement 3.2:

· critical skills in the close reading, description and analysis of texts

· ability to articulate knowledge and understanding of complex texts, concepts and theories

· sensitivity to generic conventions and to the shaping effects upon communication of circumstances, authorship, textual production and intended audience

· responsiveness to the central role of language in the creation of meaning and a sensitivity to the affective power of language

· rhetorical skills of effective communication and argument, both oral and written

· command of a broad range of vocabulary and an appropriate critical terminology

· bibliographic skills appropriate to the discipline

THE OPPORTUNITY FOR REASSESSMENT IN THIS MODULE: 

In accordance with University regulations, students are allowed two attempts at retrieval of any failed assessment, capped at 40%.

Unlike school, university lectures neither read the text with you, nor introduce the text so you can decide whether to read it or write about it. They discuss complex theories about the texts, and assume that you have read the set text beforehand. Similarly, seminars allow you to discuss your understanding of the text. Thus, you must read some literary criticism about the text before each seminar.

Bring your set text to both lecture and seminar, so that you can analyse passages with the lecturer or tutor.

Week (A/B refers to the first or second lecture that week)

1A How to read an early modern poem (poems by Marlowe, Raleigh, and Donne, in Norton, pp. 1126, 1024, and 1384); how to present arguments in seminars

1B How to select, read and use literary criticism (readings will be given out in lecture 1A)

2A Sidney, from Astrophil and Stella (published 1591; Norton, pp. 1084-1102) - formal properties of the sonnet; its uses

2B Sidney - sex, gender and desire; courtier’s position

3A Marlowe, Dr. Faustus (published 1604; Norton, pp. 1128-63) - early modern staging

3B Marlowe - faith; plays as thought experiments; humanist ambitions

4A Spenser, from The Faerie Queene, book 1, cantos 1-5 (published 1590; Norton pp. 781-843 ) - the formal properties and uses of allegory

4B Spenser - formal properties of romance

5A Jonson, from Epigrams, The Forest, and The Underwood (published 1612, 1616, and 1640; Norton, pp. 1539-58) - the formal properties of satire, eulogy, and epigram; didacticism

5B Herbert, from The Temple (1633; Norton, pp. 1707-25) - formal properties of religious lyric

[week 6 is a reading week]

7A Introduction to an age of enlightenment (1660-1800); how to prepare for exams

7B Milton – Paradise Lost (published 1667, 1674; Norton pp.1943-64), Introduction – new/old poetic forms, the importance of print

8A Milton – Paradise Lost, Book 1 and 2 (Norton pp.1943-86) – epic similes, characterisation, and free will

8B Congreve - The Way of the World (published 1700; Norton pp.2359-420) – Restoration staging, reformation, gender

9A Congreve - The Way of the World (published 1700; Norton pp.2359-420) – Dramatic language

9B Pope, The Rape of the Lock (published 1714; Norton pp.2685-704) - satire and aestheticising the eighteenth century

10A Swift, ‘The Lady’s Dressing Room’(published 1732; Norton pp. 2767-70); and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu: ‘The Reason that Induced Dr S to Write a Poem Called the Lady’s Dressing Room’ (published 1732-34; Norton pp. 2770-72) - gender and authorship

10B Stephen Duck, ‘The Thresher’s Labour’(published 1730; Norton pp. 2443-4); Mary Collier, ‘The Woman’s Labour’ (published 1739; Norton pp. 2445-6) – labouring class poets, descriptive poetry, and sentiment

11A Thomas Gray, ‘An Elegy Wrote in a Country Churchyard’ (published 1751; Norton pp. 3051-4) – sentiment, graveyard poetry, class, the role of the bard

11B Hume, ‘Of the Liberty of the Press’(published 1741/2; Norton pp. 3024-28) Burke, from Speech on the Conciliation with the American Colonies (1775; Norton pp. 3028-32), and Johnson, ‘A Brief to Free a Slave’ (1777; Norton pp. 3032-3) – enlightened thought, libertarian principles, rhetoric

The set texts are contained in the following anthology:

· The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Volume 1, 9th edition, ed. Stephen Greenblatt et al. (New York: Norton, 2012).

Some supplementary reading will be distributed via Learning Central.

None given.