Environments of Early Modern Drama
| Module title | Environments of Early Modern Drama |
|---|---|
| Module code | EASM191 |
| Academic year | 2024/5 |
| Credits | 30 |
| Module staff | Dr Chloe Preedy (Convenor) |
| Duration: Term | 1 | 2 | 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Duration: Weeks | 11 |
| Number students taking module (anticipated) | 12 |
|---|
Module description
This module will re-orient your existing knowledge of early modern drama round three key environments: the urban theatrical scene, the elemental world, and the human in relation to the world. You will engage with a variety of texts including well-known plays by Marlowe, Shakespeare and Jonson alongside lesser-known dramatic texts that open up fresh insights and debates. Throughout, you will consider drama as an embodied genre that responds to its various environments.
Module aims - intentions of the module
This module aims to develop your skills as a researcher and literary scholar through an advanced grounding in theatre history and understanding of how drama, as an embodied artform, engages with its physical, cultural and elemental environments. You will examine a range of dramatic texts, from the ‘canonical’ single-authored via civic entertainment through to collaboratively written plays. Through focused attention on those dramatic texts and how they engage with their contexts, along with engagement with critical material ranging from ecocriticism, gender studies, medical humanities, trauma studies and maritime studies, you will gain an advanced and sophisticated understanding of the environments and history of early modern theatre and dramatic writing.
Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)
ILO: Module-specific skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 1. Demonstrate an advanced appreciation of early modern theatre as an embodied artform
- 2. Demonstrate an advanced capacity to relate early modern dramatic texts to their environments (the urban theatrical scene, the elemental world and the body in relation to the world)
ILO: Discipline-specific skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 3. Demonstrate a sophisticated and intellectually mature ability to analyse the dramatic writing of an earlier era and to relate its concerns and its modes of expression to its historical context
- 4. Demonstrate an advanced and precise ability to work from the detail of dramatic texts, with a full appreciation of their theatrical nature
ILO: Personal and key skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 5. Demonstrate advanced communication and presentation skills, in-person and live online, and an ability to articulate your views convincingly both individually and in groups
- 6. Through essay-writing, demonstrate advanced research and bibliographic skills, an advanced and intellectually mature capacity to construct a coherent, substantiated argument and to write clear and correct prose
- 7. Through research for module assessments, demonstrate an advanced proficiency in information retrieval and analysis
- 8. Through research, discussion, and essay writing demonstrate an advanced and intellectually mature capacity to question assumptions, to distinguish between fact and opinion, and to critically reflect on your own learning process
Syllabus plan
The module begins with a week of scene-setting and a workshop, in which you will (re-)consider Tamburlaine in relation to bodies, urban and theatrical spaces, and the elements. Thereafter, the module will proceed in three thematically organised units. In the first part, you will consider drama in a range of urban contexts and think about playhouses, fairgrounds and city environments. In the second unit, you will think about environments from a less human-centred perspective, focusing on elements such as the sea, air, and elemental environments. The third unit concentrates on how bodies relate to their surroundings and you will explore how species boundaries, bodily boundaries, and cultural taboos are transgressed, culminating in studying how such transgressions can be represented in twenty-first-century film and live performance.
While the content may vary from year to year, it is envisioned that it will cover some or all of the following topics:
- Setting the stage: Christopher Marlowe’s Tamburlaine the Great, Parts 1 and 2
- Urban theatrical environments: playhouses, civic spaces, fairgrounds
- The elemental world: sea, air, forest
- The body in the world: bodily boundaries, painting the body, and decomposition
- Performing early modern tragedy today: re-imagining urban, elemental, and bodily environments for twenty-first century audiences.
The dramatic texts and performances studied on the module may vary from year to year. Please consult ELE for full details of texts taught in the year ahead and for the detailed reading list.
Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities | Guided independent study | Placement / study abroad |
|---|---|---|
| 32 | 268 | 0 |
Details of learning activities and teaching methods
| Category | Hours of study time | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching | 22 | Seminars |
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching | 1.5 | Workshop (blocking) |
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching | 2.5 | Group Presentations (online) |
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching | 6 | Film screenings |
| Guided Independent Study | 100 | Seminar preparation (independent) |
| Guided Independent Study | 168 | Reading, research, and essay preparation |
Formative assessment
| Form of assessment | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract | 500 words | 1-3 | Individual feedback in office hour |
Summative assessment (% of credit)
| Coursework | Written exams | Practical exams |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | 0 | 0 |
Details of summative assessment
| Form of assessment | % of credit | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Group presentation (live online) | 25 | 10 minutes per student, with PowerPoint slides and 1000-word written submission | 1-8 | Feedback sheet with tutorial follow-up |
| Essay | 75 | 5000 words | 1-4, 6-8 | Feedback sheet with tutorial follow-up |
| 0 | ||||
| 0 | ||||
| 0 | ||||
| 0 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Group presentation (live online - 10 minutes per student, with PowerPoint slides and 1000-word written submission) | Individual presentation (recorded, with PowerPoint slides and 1000-word written submission) | 1-8 | Referral/Deferral period |
| Essay (5000 words) | Essay (5000 words) | 1-4, 6-8 | 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 50%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 50%.
Indicative learning resources - Basic reading
Full details of core and secondary reading will be available on ELE in advance of the beginning of the academic year. Selected relevant publications by colleagues who have contributed to the module include:
- Pascale Aebischer, Screening Early Modern Drama: Beyond Shakespeare (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020)
- Jo Esra, ‘“[H]eer will be noe fishing”: 17th century Barbary Piracy and the West Country Fisheries’, Troze: The Online Journal of the National Maritime Museum Cornwall, 7.1 (2016): 3-19
- Chloe Kathleen Preedy, Aerial Environments on the Early Modern Stage: Theatres of the Air, 1576-1609 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022)
- Victoria Sparey, Shakespeare’s Adolescents: Age, Gender and the Body in Shakespearean Performance and Early Modern Culture (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2023)
- Naya Tsentourou, ‘Hamlet’s “Spendthrift Sigh”: Emotional Breathing on and Off the Stage’, in Hamlet and Emotions, ed. Paul Megna, Bríd Phillips, and R. S. White (Cham: Palgrave, 2019), 161-76
Please note that the teaching team for the module will vary from year to year, depending on staff availability.
Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources
- ELE – Faculty to provide hyperlink to appropriate pages
- World Shakespeare Bibliography Online: https://www.worldshakesbib.org/
- The EarthShakes Alliance: https://earthshakes.ucmerced.edu/resources
- Early Modern Theatre: http://earlymoderntheatre.co.uk/
- Map of Early Modern London (Agas Project): https://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/index.htm
- Records of Early English Drama (REED): https://reed.utoronto.ca/
| Credit value | 30 |
|---|---|
| Module ECTS | 15 |
| Module pre-requisites | None |
| Module co-requisites | None |
| NQF level (module) | 7 |
| Available as distance learning? | No |
| Origin date | 16/05/2023 |
| Last revision date | 16/05/2023 |
