English and drama

Outer Worlds: Literature, 800-1750

Module code: Q3305
Level 5
30 credits in autumn semester
Teaching method: Workshop, Seminar, Lecture
Assessment modes: Coursework

We will explore the representation of real and fictive worlds in literature from the early medieval period to the eighteenth century. Focusing on works by authors such as Chaucer, Christopher Marlowe and Aphra Behn we will ask how writers understood the relationship between truth and fiction and how they imagined their own world in terms of others, both real and invented. How did medieval and early modern authors use genres such as fantasy, romance and travel writing to explore ideas about racial and religious difference, colonialism, international trade and adventure? How do writers use drama and utopian writings (about imagined ideal communities) to investigate radical political and social questions? Texts studied have included Beowulf, The Faerie Queene, Utopia, Tamburlaine, Oronooko, and other works.

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.
• Understand the nature of travel writing and its relationship to literary writing.
• Understand ideas of race, racial difference, and forms of prejudice, and the history of colonialism and colonial writing.
• demonstrate an understanding of the value of undertaking research into a particular aspect of English literary culture produced before 1750