Module ENGL3641: Ballads and Popular Romance

Department: English Studies

ENGL3641: Ballads and Popular Romance

Prerequisites

• At least one of the following modules: Introduction to Drama (ENGL 1011), Introduction to the Novel (ENGL 1061), Introduction to Poetry (ENGL 1071). English: Language, Use, Theory (ENGL1021), Classical and Biblical Backgrounds of English Literature (ENGL1031), Myth and Epic of the North (ENGL1041), Romance and the Literature of Chivalry (ENGL1051).

Corequisites

• Any other 20 credit lecture module in English.

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None.

Aims

• To study in depth a selection of early romances and ballads, focusing in particular on the collections of ballad/romance material that were made by Thomas Percy in the eighteenth century and Francis J. Child in the nineteenth
• To examine the history of the texts collected by Percy and Child, and to consider in particular the extent to which they reflect specific medieval traditions
• To introduce students to the material evidence that precedes the Percy and Child collections, especially the famous Percy Folio manuscript, but also some of the relevant early printed material
• To investigate the social contexts in which such material was compiled and read (before it reached the pages of the collectors)
• To provide illustrations of some of the ways in which this material continues to have a presence even in the popular culture of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries
• To introduce students to the particular historical conditions that shape ballad/romance traditions and explain some of their characteristic themes
• To define the stylistic and aesthetic expectations of writers, readers and collectors of ballads
• To make students aware of other popular narrative/song traditions beyond the ballad/romance tradition represented by Percy and Child
• To encourage students to consider the significance of Percy and Child corpora to the history of English literature as a whole

Content

• The term ballad is very rich in connotation. At one level, it suggests a distinct kind of stylistics: the highly economical, evocative and melodramatic forms of expression characteristic of ballad as a form of narration. At another, it suggests a particular set of thematic/aesthetic emphases, including stories of the supernatural, violence, murder and frustrated love. At yet another, it evokes a particular landscape, the north of England and its borders with Scotland. Many of the traditional ballads that survive are explicitly connected with this region, and they often reflect its longstanding political and social instability, its very specific local feuds and rivalries, and also a strong sense of a “Borders” identity outweighing any sense of Englishness or Scottishness. Ballads can perhaps be seen as romances-in-miniature; and they share many themes and motifs with late medieval and early modern “popular” romance. A case in point is the Robin Hood tradition, in which ballads and romances are closely related. This tradition is generally located further south than the Borders ballads, though it shares their interest in outlawry and feud. Another illustration of the close relationship between ballads and romances is the seventeenth-century manuscript known as the Percy folio, which contains a mixture of early modern and medieval texts, including a number of texts that can clearly be described as ballads or romances. One of the major themes for commentators on such texts has been the tension between the historical authenticity of ballads/romances and the editing, invention or “polishing” of “traditional material”: this is brought particularly into focus by the involvement of individuals like Anna Gordon (Mrs Brown of Falkland), Thomas Percy and Sir Walter Scott in the “rediscovery” of “ancient” texts. This module addresses all of these issues, as well as the wider intellectual and cultural contexts in which such material was disseminated and recorded in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Learning Outcomes

• Students will be expected to demonstrate a close knowledge of the ballad/romance tradition as represented by the Percy and Child corpora, to show an understanding of the cultural and intellectual contexts of this material, and to engage with various critical approaches to it.

• Students studying this module will develop:
• critical skills in the close reading and analysis of texts
• an ability to demonstrate knowledge of a range of texts, authors, literary periods and critical approaches
• informed awareness of formal and aesthetic dimensions of literature and ability to offer cogent analysis of their workings in specific texts
• sensitivity to generic conventions and to the shaping effects on communication of historical circumstances, and to the affective power of language
• an ability to articulate and substantiate an imaginative response to literature
• an ability to articulate knowledge and understanding of concepts and theories relating to literary studies
• appreciation of the cultural differences created by time, and of the mechanisms by which cultural assumptions change over time
• skills of effective communication and argument
• awareness of conventions of scholarly presentation, and bibliographic skills including accurate citation of sources and consistent use of scholarly conventions of presentation
• command of a broad range of vocabulary and an appropriate critical terminology
• awareness of literature as a medium through which values are affirmed and debated

• Students studying this module will develop:
• a capacity to analyse literary texts and other cultural artefacts critically
• an ability to acquire complex information of diverse kinds in a structured and systematic way involving the use of distinctive interpretative skills derived from the subject
• an informed awareness of formal, aesthetic and socio-cultural dimensions of literature and also an ability to offer cogent analysis of their workings in relation to particular evidence
• competence in the planning and execution of essays
• a capacity for independent thought and judgment, and ability to assess the critical ideas of others
• skills in critical reasoning
• an ability to handle information and argument in a critical manner
• information-technology skills such as word-processing and electronic data access information
• organization and time-management skills

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

• Seminars will encourage peer-group discussion and a collective, interactive responsiveness to the texts under discussion. They will also enable students to think critically and to read the primary evidence with a close attention to its formal, aesthetic and historical dimensions
• Seminars will encourage effective oral communication skills.
• The consultation session with one of the seminar leaders prior to the first essay will facilitate an informed exploration of specific interests, ideas and arguments, enabling students to develop their subject-specific knowledge.
• Coursework: assessed essays will allow an opportunity for detailed, independent study and reflection, demonstrating an awareness of the ongoing critical commentary surrounding the texts under consideration, thereby enriching their subject-specific knowledge.
• Written feedback provided after the first assessed essay will allow students to reflect upon the comments of examiners, stimulating reflection on how to improve the rhetorical persuasiveness and subject-specific knowledge exhibited in their second essay.
• Typically, directed learning may include assigning students an issue, theme or topic that can be independently or collectively explored within a framework and/or with additional materials provided by the tutor. This may function as preparatory work for presenting their ideas or findings (sometimes electronically) to their peers and tutor in the context of a seminar.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

Before the first essay, students will have an individual consultation session in which they 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.

■ 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