English and drama

Inner Worlds: Literature, 800-1750

Module code: Q3304
Level 5
30 credits in autumn semester
Teaching method: Workshop, Seminar, Lecture
Assessment modes: Coursework

We will explore the representation of the self in literature from the early middle ages to the eighteenth century, showing how literary forms represented, created and negotiated ideas of the individual, and the relationship between individuals, institutions and systems of belief.

We will investigate a range of issues:

• writing the self and personal writing
• religious belief
• sexual identity and sexual politics
• rights and duties
• performing identities
• mysticism.

And we’ll read a wide range of fascinating material, from Old English religious poetry, such as The Dream of the Rood, to post-Restoration discussions of the nature of sexuality, such as Aphra Behn’s poetry.

Other works and authors studied may include: The Wakefield Second Shepherds’ Play, Geoffrey Chaucer, Margery Kempe, William Shakespeare, Amelia Lanyer, George Herbert, and Eliza Haywood.

Module learning outcomes

• use a range of established techniques to initiate and undertake critical analysis of information, and to propose solutions to problems arising from that analysis.
• effectively communicate information, arguments and analysis in a variety of forms and deploy key techniques of the discipline effectively.
• demonstrate an understanding of the nature of literature and fiction written before 1800.
• analyse ideas of the self in life-writing and literary texts.
• analyse the changing representation of the self as represented in discourses of sexual identity, and the relationship between religious belief and ideas of the self.
• demonstrate an understanding of the value of undertaking research into a particular aspect of English literary culture produced before 1750