English Literature of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment
Code: 106300 ECTS Credits: 6| Degree | Type | Year |
|---|---|---|
| 2504212 English Studies | OB | 3 |
Contact
- Name:
- Jordi Coral Escola
- Email:
- jordi.coral@uab.cat
Teaching groups languages
You can view this information at the end of this document.
Prerequisites
‘Orígens de la Literatura Anglesa’ (100245)
‘Història i Cultura de les Illes Britàniques’ (100217)
The course requires an initial level of English between C1 (Advanced) and C2 (Proficiency) (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment). Students with C1 can understand a wide range of demanding, longer texts, and recognise implicit meaning; they can express themselves fluently and spontaneously without much obvious searching for expressions; they can use language flexibly and effectively for social, academic and professional purposes; they can produce clear, well-structured, detailed text on complex subjects, showing controlled use of organisational patterns, connectors and cohesive devices. With C2 students can understand almost everything they read or hear without effort; they can summarise information from different oral and written sources, reconstruct facts and arguments and present them in a coherent way; they can express themselves spontaneously, with fluency and precision, distinguishing subtle nuances of meaning even in the most complex situations.
Objectives and Contextualisation
- This course provides an introduction to the principal authors of early modern English literature (16c. to 18c.) through the critical reading of some of the most representative poetic, dramatic and narrative texts.
- This subject is indispensable to complete the undergraduate literary curriculum.
- The successful completion of this course will allow students to improve their academic, critical and linguistic skills by means of the following exercises: textual commentary, class presentations, use of library resources, and debates and class discussion.
Competences
- Act with ethical responsibility and respect for fundamental rights and duties, diversity and democratic values.
- Apply scientific ethical principles to information processing.
- Students must be capable of communicating information, ideas, problems and solutions to both specialised and non-specialised audiences.
- Use digital tools and specific documentary sources for the collection and organisation of information.
Learning Outcomes
- Analyse the fundamental aspects of ethical conduct and the challenges this poses to a culturally diverse environment.
- Integrate knowledge and information from academic sources consulted for written work, citing, referencing and paraphrasing correctly.
- Locate and organise relevant English-language information available on the internet, databases and libraries, and apply this to work and/or research environments.
- Organise the autonomous component to the learning process in an effective manner.
- Rigorously approach the values conveyed by the texts analysed, carrying out constructive criticism.
- Understand the fundamental aspects of the rights and duties that construct values in a democratic society.
Content
Syllabus
Unit 1: The works of William Shakespeare: a) poetry: "The Sonnets" (selected poems) and the Petrarchan tradition; b) drama: "The Merchant of Venice" and the early modern stage.
Unit 2: Metaphysical poetry: selected poems of John Donne and Andrew Marvell.
Unit 3: John Milton: "Paradise Lost" (a selection).
Unit 4: The Rise of the Novel: Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe".
Activities and Methodology
| Title | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Type: Directed | |||
| Practice classes: reading and debates | 20 | 0.8 | |
| Theory classes | 30 | 1.2 | |
| Type: Supervised | |||
| Assignments | 25 | 1 | |
| Type: Autonomous | |||
| Reading | 15 | 0.6 | |
| Study | 35 | 1.4 |
The teaching methodology will be based on:
- Directed activities (30%, 1.8 cr)
- Supervised activities (15%, 0.9 cr)
- Autonomous activities (50%, 3 cr)
- Assessment activities (5%, 0.3 cr)
Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.
Assessment
Continous Assessment Activities
| Title | Weighting | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Attendance and class participation | 10% | 20 | 0.8 | 5, 1, 6, 2, 3, 4 |
| Exam | 45% | 2.5 | 0.1 | 5, 1, 6, 2, 3, 4 |
| In-class essay writing | 45% | 2.5 | 0.1 | 5, 1, 6, 2, 3, 4 |
Assessment for this course is based on the following criteria:
- Exam (45%)
- In-class essay writing (45%)
- Attendance and participation in class (10%)
PLEASE NOTE:
- Continuous assessment. All exercises are compulsory and submission of one of the two exams automatically excludes the possibility of obtaining “No avaluable” as a final grade. The minimum mark for any exercise or exam to be considered for the average final mark is 5. The minimum average pass mark for the whole subject is 5.
- The student’s command of English will be taken into account when marking all exercises and for the final mark. It will count as 25% of this mark for all the exercises and will be assessed on the basis of the following criteria:
- Grammar (morphology and syntax)
- Vocabulary (accuracy and variety)
- Cohesion (among sentences and paragraphs)
- Organization (sound argumentation of ideas)
- Style (expression and register)
- Spelling
- Review procedure: Students have a right to review their exercises with the teacher in a personal tutorial, on the set dates, never later than 2 weeks after the marks have been made available. The student loses this right if s/he fails to collect the exercise/exam within the period announced by the teacher.
i) On carrying out each assessment 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.
ii) In the event of a student committing any irregularity that may lead to a significant variation in the grade awarded to an assessment activity, the student will be given a zero for this activity, regardless of any disciplinary process that may take place. In the event of several irregularities in assessment activities of the same subject, the studentwill be given a zero as the final grade for this subject.
Item-by-Item Reassessment
a) Students who fail both the exam and the essay are not eligible for re-assessment; those who have failed either the exam or the essay are eligible provided that the mark of the failed exam or essay is higher than 3.5. Students who have failed one of the two exams must opt for re-assessment even if the provisional average mark of the course were 5 or higher.
b) Students whose re-assessment is successful will get, in all cases, a final grade of 5. Students who have passed both exams cannot opt for re-assessment in order to upgrade their average mark.
Single assessment:
The single assessment option will consist of the following activities:
A written exam corresponding to part one of the semester (50%).
An essay on the texts examined during the second part of the semester. (50%).
All students, whether they have opted for continuous assesment or not, will re-evaluate in the same way (indicated above).
Plagiarism and other irregularities
In the event of a student committing any irregularity that may lead to a significant variation in the grade awarded to an assessment activity, the student will be given a zero for this activity, regardless of any disciplinary process that may take place. In the event of several irregularities in assessment activities of the same subject, the student will be given a zero as the final grade for this subject.
Irregularities refer, for instance, to copying in an exam, copying from sources without indiacting authorship, or a misuse of AI such as presenting work as original that has been generated by an AI tool or programme. These evaluation activities will not be re-assessed
"Not Assessed" Final Grade
Students will obtain a “Not assessed/Not submitted” course grade provided that they have neither taken the exam nor submitted any essay.
Bibliography
BIBLIOGRAPHY (A more detailed bibliography will be provided in class)
UNIT 1
Set reading:
- William Shakespeare’s "Sonnets" (1609)
- "The Merchant of Venice" (ed. Jay L. Halio, Oxford Shakespeare, OUP, 1993).
Optional reading:
- Tempest (1610-11)
- Romeo and Juliet (1596)
- Hamlet (1601)
UNIT 2
Set readings:
- Metaphysical poetry: John Donne, George Herbert, Andrew Marvell.
- Henry Vaughan, Selected poetry (1650s)
- Francis Bacon, "Essays" (1597)
UNIT 3
Set readings:
- "Paradise Lost" by John Milton (1645)
Optional readings:
- "Paradise Regained", John Milton
- "Samson Agonistes", John Milton
UNIT 4
Set reading:
- "Gulliver's Travels" (1726) de Jonathan Swift
Optional readings:
- "Robinson Crusoe", 1719, Daniel Defoe.
- Political Writings, 1720, Mary Astell.
- "Love Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister" (1684), Aphra Behn.
Websites:
- The Shakespeare Resource Centre: http://www.bardweb.net/
- 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/
Please note:
For each unit at least one academic article will be read (see Campus Virtual).
Other recomended texts:
Bate, Jonathan. "English Literature: A Very Short Introduction". Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Elledge, Scott (ed.). "Paradise Lost: An Authoritative Texts, Backgrounds, and Sources". New York: Norton, 1993.
Kermode, Frank. "The Age of Shakespeare". London: Orion, 2004.
Levi, Anthony. "Renaissance and Reformation: Intellectual Genesis". New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002.
MacCulloch, Diarmaid. "Reformation: Europe’s House Divided". London: Penguin Books, 2003.
Norbrook, David (ed.) The Penguin Book of Renaissance Verse. London: Penguin, 2005.
Patterson, Annabel. "John Milton". London: Longman, 1991.
Sanders, Julie. "The Cambridge Introduction to Early Modern Drama". Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.
Smith, Emma. "This is Shakespeare", London: Random House, 2020.
Van Doren, Mark. "Shakespeare", New York: New York Review of Books, 2005.
Zwicker, Steven N. "The Cambridge Companion to English Literature 1650:1740". Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Software
Not applicable
Language list
| Name | Group | Language | Semester | Turn |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| (PAUL) Classroom practices | 1 | English | second semester | morning-mixed |
| (PAUL) Classroom practices | 2 | English | second semester | morning-mixed |
| (TE) Theory | 1 | English | second semester | morning-mixed |
| (TE) Theory | 2 | English | second semester | morning-mixed |