Inventing the Early Modern: Literary Cultures, 1550-1700

Module title	Inventing the Early Modern: Literary Cultures, 1550-1700
Module code	TRU2020
Academic year	2019/0
Credits	15
Module staff	Dr Chloe Preedy (Convenor)

Duration: Term	1	2	3
Duration: Weeks		6

Number students taking module (anticipated)	90

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 seminar discussion and debate, to undertake group tasks, and to present information verbally. 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 seminars and 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: The Fair Maid of the West Part 1
Political Revolutions: Milton, Herrick, Marvell (Aeropagitica and selected poems)
Exile and Excess: The Rover
Imagining the Early Modern: Contemporary Responses

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

Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities	Guided independent study	Placement / study abroad
19	131	0

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Category	Hours of study time	Description
Scheduled Learning and Teaching	7	7 x 1-hour lectures
Scheduled Learning and Teaching	12	6 x 2-hour seminars
Guided Independent Study	131	Independent preparation for scheduled sessions, follow-up work, wider reading, completion of assessment tasks, etc

Formative assessment

Form of assessment	Size of the assessment (eg length / duration)	ILOs assessed	Feedback method
Essay (source analysis)	1000 words	1-9	Written and option for oral feedback

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Coursework	Written exams	Practical exams
0	90	10

Details of summative assessment

Form of assessment	% of credit	Size of the assessment (eg length / duration)	ILOs assessed	Feedback method
Examination (seen paper)	90	1 hour and 30 minutes	1-5, 7-9	Written and option for oral feedback
Participation	10	Continuous	1-5	Oral feedback with opportunity for office hours follow-up

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

Original form of assessment	Form of re-assessment	ILOs re-assessed	Timescale for re-assessment
Examination (seen paper)	Examination (seen paper)	1-5, 7-9	Referral/deferral period
Participation	Repeat study or mitigation	1-5	Referral/deferral period

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

Core texts (you should purchase and read these works before the start of term):

Aphra Behn, ‘The Rover’ and Other Plays, ed. Jane Spencer, Oxford World's Classics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008) recommended edition; any alternative recent (post-2000) scholarly editions of The Rover are also acceptable]
The Norton Anthology of English Literature, ed. M. H. Abrams and Stephen Greenblatt et. al., 9^th edition (New York and London: W.W. Norton, 2012), Volume 1 or Volumes B and C

Recommended secondary reading (indicative):

You need not purchase these texts, but please read them during the module; the first work listed below is especially useful as a general introduction to the period.

Jason Scott-Warren, Early Modern English Literature (Cambridge: Polity, 2005)
Catherine Belsey, John Milton: Language, Gender, Power (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988)
Hero Chalmers, Royalist Women Writers, 1650-1689 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004)
Stephen Greenblatt, Shakespearean Negotiations: The Circulation of Social Energy in Renaissance England (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988)
Achsah Guibbory, Ceremony and Community from Herbert to Milton: Literature, Religion, and Cultural Conflict in Seventeenth-Century England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998)
Richard Helgerson, Forms of Nationhood: The Elizabethan Writing of England (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992)
David Norbrook, Poetry and Politics in the English Renaissance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002)
Michelle O’Callaghan, Thomas Middleton, Renaissance Dramatist (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009)
Bruce R. Smith, Homosexual Desire in Shakespeare’s England: A Cultural Poetics (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1991)

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

Credit value	15
Module ECTS	7.5
Module pre-requisites	None
Module co-requisites	None
NQF level (module)	5
Available as distance learning?	No
Origin date	06/06/2017
Last revision date	14/03/2019