Literature and Controversy 1350-1650

Module Code:         MELEN4LAC

Module Convenor:  Dr Claire Bartram |

This option module is open to all MA students.

The module examines late medieval and early modern literature, in the context of the religious and political controversies of the period 1350-1650. Locating the literature in its social and cultural contexts, the course explores the complex construction and articulation of controversy in this period, and its impact for institutions, for individuals, and for the texts they produced and read.  It facilitates students' analyses of critical and/or theoretical responses to this literature and encourages understanding of apposite historical, cultural and critical contexts and scholarly debates.  Students are engaged in critical analysis of issues in this literature and are encouraged in critical discourse and scholarly interchange. Independent research and sharpened critical thought are developed through devising, researching and writing an individual research essay.

Student debate and scholarly exchange of views are integral to the module. Students' facility for independent research and sophisticated critical thought are enabled through devising, researching and writing an individual research essay proposal and research essay.

 

 

  

Assessment

600 word research essay proposal (15%)
3,400 word research essay (85%)

Illustrative Module Texts 

Students are advised not to buy books until the set texts for each year have been finalized.

Texts will be chosen from a list which may include but is not restricted to:

Askewe, Anne, Examinations and other Writings (1547)

Bale, John, Kyng Johan (1538)

Foxe, John, Acts and Monuments (1570/76)

Gosson, Stephen School of Abuse (1579)

Hoccleve, Thomas, My Compleinte (c.1421)

Julian of Norwich, Shewings (c.1377, c.1388

Kempe, Margery, The Boke of Margery Kempe (c.1420)

Lambarde, William, A Perambulation of Kent (1576)

Langland, William, Piers Plowman (c.1362, c.1377, c.1390)

Love, Nicholas, Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ (c.1410)

Roper, William, Life of Sir Thomas More (printed 1626)

Proctor, John, History of Wyatt's Rebellion (1554)

Prynne, William, Histriomastix (1632)

Selections from English Wycliffite Writings, ed. Hudson (c.1380-1450)

Shakespeare, William, Henry VIII (1613)

Spenser, Edmund, The Faerie Queene (1590)

Thorpe, William, The Testimony of William Thorpe (c.1407)