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Inventing the Early Modern: Literary Cultures, 1550-1700

Module description

This module introduces you to English literature written during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: the age of Elizabeth I, Cromwell, Shakespeare, and Milton. Early modern England (c. 1550-1700) experienced new geographical discoveries and technological advancements, but also suffered political, religious and social turmoil. Creative and stylistic innovations flourished, as writers responded to the legacy of classical Greece and Rome; the first professional English theatres opened (and closed!); and both men and women, from diverse social backgrounds, gained fresh opportunities to publish their work. This module explores some of the most influential, unusual, and inventive literary works of early modern England.

Module aims - intentions of the module

The module will consider a selection of works from the English Renaissance period. You will also be encouraged to recognise some of the ways in which literary works and stylistic innovations from this period of history have exerted an important influence upon subsequent literature. By introducing you to the key debates about culture, religion and politics that sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English literature was responding to and engaging with, the module will cultivate the ability to analyse literature through detailed attention to history and context. It will build the historical and literary research skills required for the in-depth analysis of early modern texts and issues, which are applicable to the study of literary and historical texts in general. You will be taught to use online primary sources and encouraged to conduct independent research. You will be expected to participate in discussion and debate, to undertake group tasks, and to share information with your peers. Together with essay writing, these skills are fundamental to research and communication, and will provide you with transferrable verbal and written skills relevant to the workplace. By the end of this module, you will have become familiar with a body of literature from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and will be able to put that knowledge and the related skills you have acquired to practical use when pursuing future careers in (for instance) the communication, creative, arts, education, and media sectors.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Demonstrate an informed knowledge and understanding of specific early modern literary texts and authors
• 2. Describe historical developments that influenced early modern literature
• 3. Analyse how early modern literature responds to the historical, intellectual, and social developments of the period

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 4. Effectively analyse the literature of an earlier era
• 5. Relate the concerns and/or modes of expression identified in the literature of an earlier era to its historical, cultural or intellectual context
• 6. Demonstrate an informed understanding of relevant theoretical and/or critical ideas, and apply these ideas to literary texts.

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 7. Demonstrate effective research and bibliographic skills, the capacity to construct a coherent, substantiated argument, and the capacity to write clear and correct prose
• 8. Through preparation for essays, demonstrate proficiency in information retrieval and analysis
• 9. Develop, organise, and express ideas effectively in written form to set deadlines and/or in a time-limited setting

Syllabus plan

Whilst the content may vary from year to year, it is envisioned that it will cover some or all of the following topics:

• Encounters with the Past: Hero and Leander
• Religious Reformations: The Faerie Queene, Book I
• Travelling the World: Diplomacy and Discord
• An Urban “Underworld”: The Alchemist
• Political Revolutions: Herrick, Marvell, Milton, Trapnel (selected poetry and prose)
• Exile and Excess: The Rover

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to sit a further examination. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of referral will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

Recommended secondary reading (indicative):

• Jerry Brotton, The Renaissance: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2006)
• Clare Carroll, ‘Humanism and English literature in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries’, in The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Humanism, ed. Jill Kraye (Cambridge University Press, 1996), 246-68
• Hero Chalmers, Royalist Women Writers, 1650-1689 (Clarendon, 2004), esp. Chapter 4
• Mario DiGangi, The Homoerotics of Early Modern Drama (Cambridge University Press, 1997)
• Andrew Hadfield, Literature, Travel, and Colonial Writing in the English Renaissance, 1545-1625 (Oxford University Press, 2007)
• Kim F. Hall, Things of Darkness: Economies of Race and Gender in Early Modern England (Cornell University Press, 1995)
• Michael Hattaway, ed., A New Companion to English Renaissance Literature (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010)
• Andrew Hiscock and Helen Wilcox, eds, The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern English Literature and Religion (Oxford University Press, 2017)
• Laura Lunger Knoppers, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Literature and the English Revolution (Oxford University Press, 2012)
• Ania Loomba and Melissa E. Sanchez, eds, Rethinking Feminism in Early Modern Studies: Gender, Race, and Sexuality (Routledge, 2016)
• Willy Maley, Nation, State, and Empire in English Renaissance Literature: Shakespeare to Milton (Palgrave Macmillan, 2002)
• Julie Sanders, The Cambridge Introduction to Early Modern Drama, 1576-1642 (Cambridge University Press, 2014)
• Jyotsna Singh, ed., A Companion to the Global Renaissance: English Literature and Culture in the Era of Expansion (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009)

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• ELE page: https://vle.exeter.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=7504 (the ELE site for this module includes a digitised reading list with links to the University of Exeter library’s e-book holdings and catalogue of resources)
• Dictionary of National Biography
• Early Modern Literary Studies
• EEBO
• JSTOR
• Project Muse
• Renaissance and Reformation
• The Milton Reading Room
• World Shakespeare Bibliography Online

Key words search

Renaissance, early modern, Reformation, Civil War, Restoration, literature, Behn, Marlowe, Milton, Spenser, drama, poetry, prose