Degree | Type | Year | Semester |
---|---|---|---|
2500245 English Studies | OB | 3 | 1 |
2501902 English and Catalan | OT | 3 | 0 |
2501902 English and Catalan | OT | 4 | 0 |
2501907 English and Classics | OT | 3 | 0 |
2501907 English and Classics | OT | 4 | 0 |
2501910 English and Spanish | OT | 3 | 0 |
2501910 English and Spanish | OT | 4 | 0 |
2501913 English and French | OT | 3 | 0 |
2501913 English and French | OT | 4 | 0 |
Taking this subject requires having mastered the contents of the first-year subject "Història i Cultura de les Illes Britàniques". There is a further pre-requirement: having the C1 level of English (advanced) of the Common European framework of the Reference for Laguages: Learning, Teaching, and Assessment, on the basis of which the student can express him or hserself with fluidity and spontaneity, and use the language in a pratical and flexible way for social, academic and professional purposes.
This subject offers a comprehensive introduction to the main genres of English literature from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries. As such, it is based on detailed critical and textual analysis of some key texts written in the period. It also seeks to familiarize students with current trends in the critical reception of this literary corpus. In successfully completing the course, students will acquire the following skills:
Read and write about English medieval literature in a sufficiently sophisticated way to do justice to its complexities and subtleties.
Enrich their conception of the main literary genres and their uses in medieval and early modern England.
Improve their understanding of the intersection between literary text, historical context, and cultural values.
Learn how to take advantage of the resources of a modern university library to interpret and write about pre- and early-modern literary texts.
a) show good reading comprehension skills in both poetry and prose of the late Middle Ages and the Early Modern period;
b) develop basic literary criticism skills through essays and class presentations;
c) be able to use the library resources as applied to this subject matter.
SYLLABUS
Unit 1: The origins and development of the Arthurian Romance: a reading of Perceval and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
Unit 2: Geoffrey Chaucer andnarrative poetry: the Canterbury Tales.
Unit 3: Humanism and Reformation: Thomas More’s Utopia and selected religious writing.
Unit 4: Renaissance Poetry: sonnet sequences (Wyatt, Howard, Sidney and Spenser)
This subject seeks to combine conventional methodologies associated with the theoretical dimension of the course (lectures) with more dynamic approaches to the literary text that encourage students to get actively involved with class activities (group discussion and debate). Thus, the principal learning strategies will be as follows:
Title | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
---|---|---|---|
Type: Directed | |||
Lectures | 30 | 1.2 | 2, 7, 8, 10, 15, 13 |
Practical classes, text analysis and class debates | 35 | 1.4 | 1, 2, 7, 15 |
Type: Supervised | |||
Class discussion and debates | 20 | 0.8 | 2, 7, 15, 12, 5, 16 |
Type: Autonomous | |||
Reading | 25 | 1 | 1, 9, 13, 17 |
Revising for exams | 15 | 0.6 | 8, 13, 14, 17 |
Assessment of this course is based on the following percentages:
NB: Group discussion will be normal practice in this subject and students will be expected actively to contribute to class discussions.
Exam 1 will take place during week 7 or 8; exam 2 during the final teaching week of the semester, i.e. 15.
PLEASE NOTE:
Procedure for Reviewing Grades Awarded: on carrying out each evaluation activity, lecturers will inform students (on Moodle) of the procedures to be followed for reviewing all grades awarded, and the date on which such a review will take place.
IMPORTANT NOTICE: Partial or total plagiarising will immediately result in a FAIL (0) for the plagiarised exercise or the WHOLE SUBJECT. if instances of plagiarism are repeated. PLAGIARISING consists of copying text from unacknowledged sources –whether this is part of a sentence or a whole text– with the intention of passing it off as the student’s own production. It includes cutting and pasting from internet sources, presented unmodified in the student’s own text. Plagiarising is a SERIOUS OFFENCE. Students must respect authors’ intellectual property, always identifying the sources they may use; they must also be responsible for the originality and authenticity of their own texts.
Title | Weighting | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
---|---|---|---|---|
Exam 1 | 45% | 2 | 0.08 | 1, 2, 7, 3, 4, 8, 9, 15, 6, 13 |
Exam 2 | 45% | 2 | 0.08 | 1, 9, 10, 15, 6, 14, 11, 17 |
Practicipation in debates | 10% | 21 | 0.84 | 12, 5, 16 |
The following editions of the primary texts are recommended and will be used in class:
Helen Cooper (ed.), Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, trans. by Keith Harrison, Oxford World's Classics, OUP, 2008.
Thomas More, Utopia, ed. by Dominic Baker-Smith, Penguin Classics, Penguin Books, 2012.
UNIT 1 Chivalric romance: The Story of the Grail and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Optional further reading: Lancelot du Lac, Queste du Graal, La Morte D´Arthur by Thomas Malory (1485).
UNIT 2 The poetry of Geoffrey Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales (in particular, General Prologue,and The Miller´s Tales. Optional further reading: Troilus and Criseyde, The Parlyament of Fowles.
UNIT 3 Humanism and the Reformation. Utopia by Thomas More (1516); Selected texts from “Faith in Conflict”, Norton Anthology I. Optional further reading: A Dialogue of Comfort by Thomas More (1534).
UNIT 4 Renaissance poetry. Selected sonnets by Thomas Wyatt, Isabella Whitney, Philip Sidney and Edmund Spenser. Optional further reading: A Defence of Poetry by Sir Philip Sidney (1595); Amoretti and Epithalamion by Edmund Spenser (1595)
Websites
The Internet Medieval Sourcebook: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook.html
English Literature on the Web: http://www.lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~matsuoka/EngLit.html - The Norton Online: http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/
Other recommended texts:
Aers, David (ed.), Medieval Literature: Criticism, Ideology and History, ed. David Aers, (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1986).
Boitani, Piero and Jill Mann, (eds), The Cambridge Chaucer Companion, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).
Glasscoe, Marion, English Medieval Mystics, (London: Longman, 1993).
Jost, Jean A., Middle English Arthurian Romances: A Reference Guide, (Boston, 1986).
Krueger, Roberta L., (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Romance, (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000).
Easting, Robert, Visions of the Other World in Middle English, (Rochester, NY, 1997).
Levi, Anthony. Renaissance and Reformation: Intellectual Genesis, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002).
Mahoney, Dhira, (ed.), The Grail:A Casebook, ed. Dhira Mahoney (New York and London: Garland, 2000).
Mann, Jill. Feminizing Chaucer, (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell and Brewer, 2002).
Norbrook, David (ed.) The Penguin Book of Renaissance Verse, (London: Penguin, 2005).
Wallace, David, The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature, (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999).