Module ENGL2601: LITERATURE UNDER CHARLES I AND CROMWELL

Department: English Studies

ENGL2601: LITERATURE UNDER CHARLES I AND CROMWELL

Prerequisites

• Any Single or Joint Honours finalist student wishing to take this Special Topic module must have satisfactorily completed the required number of core modules. Combined Honours and Outside Honours students must have satisfactorily completed either two Level 1 core introductory modules, or at least one Level 1 core module and one further lecture based module in English at Level 2.

Corequisites

• None

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None

Aims

• The module will introduce students to a rich variety of literature in the period 1625 to 1660 as well as relevant literary, cultural and historical contexts. In the process, we shall read widely across different genres current in the Caroline, Civil War and Interregnum period.
• The module will encourage students to read closely, help them refine their techniques of textual analysis, and enable them to interpret texts by applying the methods of early modern rhetoric.
• It will challenge students to think historically about the generation of poets and playwrights after Shakespeare and the impact of the English Civil War on literature.
• It will encourage students to examine current literary theory and criticism on the topic and engage with terms often applied to texts of the period such as ‘nostalgia’, ‘decadence’ or ‘radicalism’.

Content

• This module will give students the opportunity to look in detail at a range of writers of the period (e.g. Jonson, Shirley, Ford, Hobbes, Waller, Herrick, Carew, Davenant or Marvell, as well as anonymous satirists).
• We will read widely across genres of drama, prose and poetry. In the process, individual seminars may focus on topics such as ‘public speaking’, ‘censorship’, ‘iconoclasm’, ‘the Thirty Years’ War in English newsletters’, ‘poetry in manuscripts’, or ‘opera and obedience: seventeenth-century literary theory’.
• Texts may include sermons and biblical passages, odes, political tracts, pamphlet plays, masques, and private letters.
• Such texts will be appraised in light of current research on the Caroline and Interregnum period: was literature under Charles I ‘rotten before ripe’? How did poems deal with war? What induces people to burn books and destroy works of art?
• It is expected that course participants familiarise themselves with a demanding reading list and prepare for one or two literary works per week during the course.

Learning Outcomes

• Students will show good knowledge of English literature 1625-1660 and an awareness of relevant contexts.

• Students will develop:
• critical skills in the close reading and analysis of texts
• knowledge of a range of texts and critical approaches
• informed awareness of formal and aesthetic dimensions of literature, and ability to offer cogent analysis of their workings in specific contexts
• sensitivity to generic conventions and command of appropriate critical terminology
• ability to articulate knowledge and understanding of concepts and theories relating to literary studies
• correct application of conventions of scholarly presentation, citation of sources, and other bibliographic skills

• Students will develop:
• an ability to acquire and process complex information of diverse kinds in a structured way
• competence in the planning and execution of essays
• a capacity for independent, critical analysis and judgement
• information-technology skills such as word-processing and electronic data access information
• organisation and time-management skills
• skills of effective communication and argument

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• The module is taught through seminars, which encourage collective responsiveness through interactive discussion as well as the development of independent, individual thought.
• Consultation session: encourages students to reflect critically and independently on their work; in this session students are entitled to show their seminar leader a list of points relevant to the essay and receive oral comment on these points. Students may also, if they wish, discuss their ideas for the second essay at this meeting.
• Assessed essays give students the opportunity for focused independent study, permitting them to explore their own ideas and insights as well as demonstrating a requisite knowledge of the subject.
• The written feedback provided after the first assessed essay allows students to reflect on examiners’ comments, giving students the opportunity to improve their work for the second essay.
• Typically, directed learning may include assigning students an issue, theme or topic that can be independently or collectively explored. This may be aided by additional materials provided by the tutor, and function as preparatory work for short student presentations in a seminar.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

Before the first essay, students will have an individual consultation in which they will receive feedback on their essay plan.

■ Attendance at all activities marked with this symbol will be monitored. Students who fail to attend these activities, or to complete the summative or formative assessment specified above, will be subject to the procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University