Module ENGL2871: Ted Hughes

Department: English Studies

ENGL2871: Ted Hughes

Prerequisites

• At least one L1 module in English Studies.

Corequisites

• Any other 20 credit lecture module in English.

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None.

Aims

• To study in depth the work of the twentieth-century English poet Ted Hughes.
• To explore the connections between poetry, ecology and wider cultural life.

Content

• This module will focus on the work of Ted Hughes.
• Seminars will foreground poetic texts, contextualising and exploring themes and more general issues where appropriate.
• Through close examination of the poetry, we shall investigate the ways in which an individual talent worked and also trace resonances and connections with key contemporaries (e.g. Sylvia Plath, Seamus Heaney, Derek Walcott etc).
• Whilst the focus of discussion will be on Hughes’s poetry, we will also make connections with his critical and dramatic work and his writing for children.
• We shall also consider such topics as the relationship between British and American poetry in the post-war period, aesthetic strategies for addressing personal material in lyric poetry, the relationship between 'private' and 'public' in poetic discourse, the role and operation of memory in poetry and issues concerning poetic 'voice' and technique, such as lineation, 'formal' and 'free' verse, diction, syntax, imagery - as and when these topics and issues arise in the study of particular poems.

Learning Outcomes

• Students will gain a substantial knowledge of the work of Ted Hughes.
• Gain knowledge of relevant critical ideas and issues, particularly surrounding elegy and ecology.

• 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 and critical approaches
• an ability to make connections between Hughes’s work and those of his contemporaries.
• 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
• 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 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
• competence in the planning and execution of assessed work
• a capacity for independent thought and judgement, 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
• organisation and time-management skills

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

• Seminars: encourage peer-group discussion, enable students to develop critical skills in the close reading and analysis of texts, and skills of effective communication and presentation; promote awareness of diversity of interpretation and methodology
• Consultation session: encourages students to reflect critically and independently on their work
• Independent but directed reading in preparation for seminars provides opportunity for students to enrich subject-specific knowledge and enhances their ability to develop appropriate subject-specific skills.
• Typically, directed learning may include assigning student(s) 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.
• Coursework: tests the student's ability to argue, respond and interpret, and to demonstrate subject-specific knowledge and skills such as appreciation of the power of imagination in literary creation and the close reading and analysis of texts; they also test the ability to present word-processed work, observing scholarly conventions. In individual Special Topics, the assessment may, where appropriate to the subject, take an alternative form, such as creative criticism.
• Feedback: The written feedback that is provided after the first assessment allows students to reflect on examiners' comments, giving students the opportunity to improve their work for the second assessment.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

Before Assessment 1, students have an individual 15 minute consultation session in which they are entitled to show their seminar leader a sheet of points relevant to the assessment and to receive oral comment on these points. Students may also if they wish, discuss their ideas for Assessment 2 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