The early modern period sees literature not as some fiddly ornament, but as fundamental to civil society: texts should move readers to want to do well, then teach them what is best to do, and always delight them, so they desire to be moved and taught. This module explores the principal genres and canonical authors from 1580–1640, finding out how literary texts engage with their society. Students will analyse the aims and formal features of the sonnet, the masque, the city pageant, the romance, the religious lyric, the epigram (both panegyric and satirical), prose (Senecan and Ciceronian), and the three main genres of plays (history, tragedy, and comedy). Bacon, Donne, Herbert, Jonson, Marlowe, Middleton, Sidney, Shakespeare, and Spenser are observed exploiting these genres to change society – and (not incidentally) their own position in it.

• Analyse works by a range of canonical authors  
• Show how these genres are used to intervene in cultural issues debated in the period and subsequently (in particular, rank, gender, religion, and ethnicity)
• Give close readings of the forms of the principal early modern genres
• Engage critically with scholarly discussions of the aesthetics of the period

The module will be taught by a one-hour lecture and a two-hour seminar each week.

• close reading, description, and analysis of primary texts
• ability to articulate knowledge and understanding about sophisticated concepts
• sensitivity to the shaping effects of an intended audience
• responsiveness to the affective power of language
• rhetorical skills in effective communication and argument, both oral and written
• command of a broad range of vocabulary and an appropriate critical terminology

The module will be assessed by a single essay of 3200 words.

This module is assessed according to the Marking Criteria set out in the module guide. There are otherwise no academic or competence standards which limit the availability of adjustments or alternative assessments for students with disabilities.

The opportunity for reassessment in this module

In accordance with University regulations, students are allowed two attempts at retrieval of any failed essay, for a maximum module mark of 40%.  Resit assessments are held over the summer.

Weeks

1
Lecture – introduction to module; the history play
Seminar - William Shakespeare, Coriolanus (c. 1604)

2
Lecture - the masque and the city pageant
Seminar – Thomas Middleton, The Triumphs of Truth (1613), in module reader (distributed in week 1 lecture); Ben Jonson, The Masque of Blackness (1605), in reader

3
Lecture – prose (Ciceronian and Senecan)
Seminar - Francis Bacon, from The Essays (revised edition 1612), in Norton Anthology plus reader

4
Lecture – the religious lyric (1)
Seminar – George Herbert, from The Temple (1633), in Norton plus reader

5
Lecture – the religious lyric (2)
Seminar – John Donne, ‘Good Friday, 1613’, three hymns (‘To Christ’, ‘To God… in My Sickness’, ‘To God the Father’), the Holy Sonnets, in Norton plus reader

6
Lecture – the romance
Seminar – Edmund Spenser, from The Faerie Queene (1596), book 1, cantos 1-12, in Norton

7
Lecture – the comedy play
Seminar – William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night (c. 1601), in Norton

8
Lecture - the sonnet sequence
Seminar – Philip Sidney, from Astrophil and Stella (1591), in Norton plus reader

9
Lecture – the epigram (satirical and panegyric)
Seminar – Ben Jonson, from Epigrams (1616), in Norton plus reader

10
Lecture – the tragedy play
Seminar – Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus (c. 1592), in Norton

Note: there will be a reading week mid-semester, at a date to be announced by the university.

Texts will be taken from W. Shakespeare, Coriolanus (any edition can be used) and The Norton Anthology of English Literature Vol B: the Sixteenth Century and Early Seventeenth Century, ed. S. Greenblatt et al (New York: WW. Norton, 2018). This is the tenth edition (which will be published in July 2018). If using second hand copies of the ninth edition, missing texts can be downloaded from Luminarium (http://www.luminarium.org/). 

Additional material will be drawn from a module reader (a free copy of which will be distributed in the first lecture).