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Approaches to Fiction and Narrative

Module description

This team-taught module will provide you with an introduction to key approaches to prose fiction and issues in narrative theory. You will engage with theoretical material relating to narrative and prose fiction alongside weekly set-texts crossing a range of prose genres including pre-novelistic romance narratives, oral tales, realist novels, the short story, and twentieth and twenty-first century experimental fiction. The generic focus will allow for a rich diversity in the range of authors, historical periods, and geographical areas to be covered.

Module aims - intentions of the module

This module will aim to introduce you to different genres of prose fiction and narrative. It will introduce you not only to a variety of fictional works in different genres but also guide you through various theoretical contexts - both formal and historical - for studying narrative.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

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

• 1. Demonstrate a knowledge of selected genres of prose fiction and theoretical contexts for reading them
• 2. Describe the issues in the formal analysis of fiction and narrative

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

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

• 3. Analyse the texts from a variety of eras and to relate their concerns and their modes of expression to their generic context
• 4. Interrelate texts and discourses specific to their own discipline with issues in the wider context of cultural and intellectual history

ILO: Personal and key skills

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

• 5. Through seminar work, demonstrate communication skills, and work both individually and in groups
• 6. Through essay-writing, demonstrate appropriate research and bibliographic skills, construct a coherent, substantiated argument, and write clear and correct prose

Syllabus plan

This is an indicative syllabus. Texts and topics on this module may include:

• The Oral Tale and the Uncanny (e.g James Hogg ‘The Brownie of the Black Haggs’ and Henry James ‘The Turn of the Screw’)
• The Short Story (e.g. D. H. Lawrence ‘Tickets Please’, Katherine Mansfield ‘The Daughters of the Late Colonel’, and Frank O’Connor ‘The Majesty of the Law’ & extracts from The Lonely Voice)
• The Victorian Novel (e.g. Hardy, The Return of the Native)
• The Modernist Novel (e.g. Djuna Barnes, Nightwood)
• The Contemporary Global Novel (e.g. Andrea Levy, Small Island)

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 redo the assessment(s) as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• ELE: https://vle.exeter.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=8330 

Key words search

Fiction, narrative, English