The Discourse of Discovery in English Renaissance Writing 15001630
Dr Mark Sweetnam
Senior Freshman Option MT
The sixteenth century was a period of dramatic technological change. New
discoveries in geography, astronomy, and science radically altered our
understanding of the universe and the individual. New technologies
transformed the way in which people made sense of the world and of
each other. This course will look at the major territorial and technological
discoveries of the sixteenth century, and will examine, through the work
of writers such as Donne, Marvell, Raleigh, Shakespeare and Hariot, the
ways in which the discourse of discovery shaped the literature of the
English Renaissance.
Reading list to follow
EN2036: Twentieth-Century Supernatural Literature: Provisional
Schedule MT 2014
Course Co-ordinator: Dr Bernice M. Murphy
([email protected])
Week 1: Introducing Supernatural Literature (BM)
Week 2: "The Turn of the Screw" by Henry James (BM)
Week 3: Stories by M.R. James and Arthur Machen (BM)*
Week 4: The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty (BM)
Week 5: The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson (BM)
Week 6: The Shining by Stephen King (BM)
Week 7: Study Week
Week 8: The Ghost Stories of Joan Aiken (Helen Conrad O’Briain)*
Week 9: Ring by Koji Suzuki
Week 10: World War Z by Max Brooks (BM)
Week 11: The Supernatural on film: The Orphanage (BM)
*These stories will be posted in PDF form on the Blackboard page
for this course.
Twentieth-Century Supernatural Literature: Critical Reading List.
Banta, Martha, Henry James and the Occult: The Great Extension, Indiana
University Press (1972).
Briggs, Julia. Night Visitors: The Rise and Fall of the English Ghost Story,
London: Faber and Faber, 1977
Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space. Boston: Beacon Press, 1960.
Bloom, Clive. Gothic Horror: A Readers Guide from Poe to King and
Beyond.
London: Macmillan, 1998.
Blum, Deborah. Ghost Hunters: The Victorians and the Search for Proof of
Life After Death. Arrow Books, 2007.
Carpenter, Lynette, and Kolmar, Wendy. Ghost Stories by American and
British
Women, New York: Garland, 1998.
Cox, Michael. M.R. James: An Informal Portrait, Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1986.
Docherty, Brian. American Horror Fiction: from Brockden Brown to
Stephen King. Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1990.
Gelder, Ken. The Horror Reader. London: Routledge, 1989.
Goddu, Theresa. Gothic America: Narrative, History and Nation. New
York:
Columbia University Press, 1997.
Grixti, Joseph. Terrors of Uncertainty: The Cultural Contexts of Horror
Fiction.
London: Routledge, 1989.
Hogle, Jerome. The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction. Cambridge,
2002.
Houellebecq, Michel. H.P.
London:
Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life,
Orion, 2006.
King, Stephen, Danse Macabre. London: Warner Books, 1981
Jancovich, Mark.
Manchester
Rational
Fears:
American
Horror
in
the
1950s.
University Press, 1996.
Jones, Darryl. Horror: A Thematic History in Fiction and Film. London:
Arnold,
2002.
Joshi. S.T. The Weird Tale, Wildside Reference.
Joshi, S.T. The Modern Weird Tale. Jefferson: McFarland, 2001.
Lanham, Neil Barron. Fantasy and Horror. Maryland: Scarecrow Press,
1999.
Melchi, Antonio. Servants of the Supernatural: The Night Side of the
Victorian Mind. London: William Heinemann, 2008.
Murphy, Bernice. The Suburban Gothic in American Popular Culture.
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
Punter, David. The Literature of Terror: Volumes 1 and 2. London:
Longman, 1996.
Punter, David. A Companion to the Gothic. Oxford: Blackwell, 2001.
Ringel, Faye. New England’s Gothic Literature. New York: Mellen Press,
1991.
Skal, David. The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror. New York:
Plexus, 1994.
Smith, Andrew, The Ghost
Manchester: MUP, 2010.
Story:
A
Cultural
History
1840-1920.
Sullivan. Jack. The Penguin Encyclopaedia of Supernatural Literature, New
York: Penguin, 1986.
Sullivan, Jack. Elegant Nightmares: The English Ghost Story from Le Fanu
to Blackwood. Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1990.Varma, Devendra. The
Gothic Flame. New Jersey: Scarecrow Press, 1987.
Contemporary Irish Fiction
Dr Paul Delaney
Senior Freshman Option MT
This one-semester SF option introduces students to the work of a range of
contemporary Irish novelists. The course engages with theories of the
novel and the contexts of recent prose fiction. Writers on the course
include John Banville, John McGahern, Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, Colm Tóibín,
William Trevor, Anne Enright and Roddy Doyle.
Week 1
Introduction: contexts and theories
Week 2
William Trevor, Felicia’s Journey
Week 3
Roddy Doyle, The Woman Who Walked Into Doors
Week 4
Seamus Deane, Reading in the Dark
Week 5
Colm Tóibín, The Blackwater Lightship
Week 6
Emma Donoghue, Hood
Week 7
Study Week
Week 8
John Banville, The Sea
Week 9
Joseph O’Connor, Star of the Sea
Week 10
Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, The Dancers Dancing
Week 11
Anne Enright, The Pleasure of Eliza Lynch
Week 12
John McGahern, That They May Face the Rising Sun
Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of this module a student should be able to:
Identify the principal characteristics of the novel form as it has been
practised in recent Irish writing.
Distinguish between some of the principal practitioners of the form in the
contemporary period, and relate specific texts to larger oeuvres.
Situate this knowledge in a larger historical, cultural and literary context.
Employ a range of interpretive strategies, using an advanced critical and
theoretical vocabulary, to engage in a close reading of a selection of
texts.
Apply this knowledge base and these interpretive strategies to advanced
studies of cognate subjects at Sophister level.
ANGLO-SAXON IDENTITY
Dr Alice Jorgensen
Option Choice Michaelmas Term
This course addresses questions of how the Anglo-Saxons viewed
themselves, their language and their world. It is also designed to provide
further practice and help in reading Old English texts in the original
language. It is aimed at students who already have some knowledge
of Old English.
We will focus primarily on the development of a sense of ethnic or
national identity among the English. Various elements play roles in the
growth of such an identity: myths of origin, the concept of Angli as a
single Christian people before God, a shared poetic imaginary, the
identification of an Other in the form of the Vikings, and conscious
propraganda efforts – the last associated especially with King Alfred.
Teaching will be by a weekly class, during which we will translate and
discuss passages from the primary texts.
Primary Texts
All the passages for reading in Old English are in Bruce Mitchell and Fred
C. Robinson, A Guide to Old English (7th or 8th edition). This is also the
main textbook used for JF Old English so it is hoped most students will
already own a copy, but please make sure you have the 7th or a more
recent edition, or you will find you do not have all the texts.
The core texts are:
M & R no. 5: Alfred the Great’s Preface to his Translation of Gregory’s
Pastoral Care
M & R no. 8: Bede’s Account of the Conversion of King Edwin
M & R no. 21: Cotton Gnomes or Maxims
M & R no. 22: Sermo Lupi ad Anglos (The Sermon of the Wolf to the
English)
Depending on time we may also read no. 11, a selection of riddles.
The complete texts are printed in the following editions:
King Alfred’s West-Saxon Version of Gregory’s Pastoral Care, ed. H.
Sweet, 2 vols, EETS OS 45 and 50 (1871)
The Old English Version of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English
People, ed. T. Miller, 2 vols in 4 parts, EETS OS 95, 96, 110 and 111
(1890-8)
MS C, ed. Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A
Collaborative Edition 5 (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2001) (for Maxims II)
The Anglo-Saxon Minor Poems, ed. Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie, Anglo-Saxon
Poetic Records VI (London: Routledge and Keegan Paul, 1942) (another
edition of Maxims II)
Wulfstan, Sermo Lupi ad Anglos, ed. Dorothy Whitelock, revised edition
(Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1976)
Texts in translation:
Anglo-Saxon Prose, ed. and trans. Michael J. Swanton, rev. edn (London:
Everyman, 1993)
Anglo-Saxon Poetry, ed. and trans. S. A. J. Bradley (London: Everyman,
1982)
Alfred the Great: Asser’s ‘Life of King Alfred’ and Other Contemporary
Sources, ed. and trans. Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge (London:
Harmondsworth, 1983)
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. and trans. G. N. Garmonsway, rev. edn
(London: Everyman, 1972)
Bede, The Ecclesiastical History of the English People; The Greater
Chronicle; Bede’s Letter to Egbert, ed. Judith McClure and Roger Collins
(Oxford: O.U.P., 1994) [this is a translation of Bede’s Latin text rather
than of the OE version, but very much worth reading for its intrinsic
importance]
Some preliminary secondary reading:
Richard Abels, Alfred the Great: War, Kingship and Culture in AngloSaxon England (London and New York, 1998)
Robert Bartlett, ‘Medieval and Modern Concepts of Race and Ethnicity’,
Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 31:1 (2001), 39-56.
Sarah Foot, ‘The Making of Angelcynn: English Identity Before the
Norman Conquest’, TRHS 6th ser. 6 (1996), 25-49.
Nicholas Howe, Migration and Mythmaking in Anglo-Saxon England,
Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England 29 (Cambridge, 1989)
Dorothy Whitelock, ‘The Prose of Alfred’s Reign’, in Continuations and
Beginnings: Studies in Old English Literature, ed. by E. G. Stanley
(London, 1966), pp. 67-103.
HILARY
TERM
OPTIONS
Senior Freshman Option HT 2015
Twentieth-Century Women’s Fiction
(12x lectures)
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the module successful students will:
-
be able to demonstrate detailed understanding of key themes in
twentieth-century fiction by women
-
show familiarity with the concept of a female literary tradition
-
be able to relate the texts to their historical and cultural contexts
-
be able to analyse a range of narrative strategies used by these
writers (modernist, realist, postmodernist etc)
-
be conversant with selected feminist and gender theories and be
able to apply those theories to a critical reading of the texts,
where appropriate
Heather Ingman.
This course looks at a range of twentieth-century novels and short stories
by women writers, beginning with Rose Macaulay’s First World War novel,
Non-Combatants and Others and continuing through the decades to
include such writers as Virginia Woolf, Jean Rhys, Angela Carter and
Jeanette Winterson. The course will set the fiction in its historical and
cultural context and consider questions both of theme and style in an
endeavour to locate a female practice of writing. There will also be a
chance to discuss the texts in the light of gender theory.
For further information about this course, e mail: [email protected]
Heather Ingman.
Reading List:
Week One: Fin de siecle women writers. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The
Yellow Wall-paper (1892). On-line or Oxford World’s Classics.
2 Rose Macaulay, Non-Combatants and Others (1916). On-line or any
edition.
3 Virginia Woolf, Jacob’s Room (1922). Penguin.
4. Jean Rhys, Voyage in the Dark (1934). Penguin.
5. Elizabeth Bowen, The Hotel in Paris (1935). Penguin.
6. Edna O’Brien, The Country Girls (1960). Penguin.
7. Study Week
8. Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961). Penguin.
9. Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber (1979). Vintage.
10. Pat Barker, Regeneration (1991). Penguin.
11. Jeanette Winterson, Written on the Body (1992). Vintage.
12. Recap.
Background Reading (to be used selectively)
Joannou, Maroula (ed), The History of British Women’s Writing, 19201945 (Palgrave, 2013).
Gilbert, S. and Gubar. S. No Man’s Land: The Place of the Woman Writer
in the Twentieth Century (1989).
Head, Dominic, Cambridge Introduction to Modern British Fiction 19502000 (2002).
Humble, Nicola, The Feminine Middlebrow Novel, 1920s to 1950s (2001).
Makinen, Merja, Feminist Popular Fiction (2001).
Maslen, Elizabeth, Political and Social Issues in British Women’s Fiction
1928-68 (2001).
Showalter, Elaine A Literature of their Own. British Women Novelists from
Brontë to Lessing (1982).
Trodd, Anthea, Women’s Writing in English: Britain 1900-1945 (1998).
Watkins, Susan, Twentieth-Century Women Novelists: feminist theory into
practice (2001).
Wisker, Gina, It’s my Party: Reading Twentieth-Century Women’s Writing
(1994).
US Literature in the 20th Century
SF Option. HT 2015
Stephen Matterson, Philip Coleman, Gillian Growszeski
This option offers a selected survey of some of the most influential works of
US Literature since 1900, covering poetry, fiction and drama. Since the
1850s and the so-called “American Renaissance”, literature of the United
States developed its true independence in the 20th century, yet it remains a
literature deeply concerned with national identity and with specifically
American issues.
1.
Introduction SM
2.
F Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby SM
3.
William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying SM
4.
Ernest Hemingway, Selected fiction SM
5.
Nella Larsen, Quicksand PC
6.
Robert Frost Selected Poetry
SM
7.
Study Week
8.
Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath, Selected Poetry GG
9.
10.
Adrienne Rich, Selected Poetry PC
Allen Ginsberg/The Beats Selected Poetry SM
11.
Tony Kushner, Angels in America PC
12.
Toni Morrison, Beloved SM
Beginners’ Old English
SF Hilary Term Option (TSM, Visiting Students and transferring
students only)
Contact hours: one hour per week.
For students who have not had the opportunity to take the JF module
Early English Language and who are beginners at Old English, this course
offers an introduction to the language. We will start with basic grammar
and go on to read selected simple prose texts and one much-admired
poem, The Dream of the Rood.
Textbook: Peter Baker, Introduction to Old English (2nd edition)
Northern Irish Literature and the Troubles
Dr Tom Walker
Senior Freshman Option HT 2015
This course will consider the relationship between Northern Irish Literature and
the Troubles from the late 1960s to the mid-1990s. It will cover poetry, fiction
and drama, setting works within their historical and cultural contexts. Focussing
on the relationship between literature, politics and conflict, it will also cover
Northern Irish theatrical and periodical culture, and debates surrounding the use
of various literary modes including realism, formalism, elegy, myth, translation
and postmodernism.
Week 1. Introduction: Northern Irish Literature before the Troubles
Week 2. Early Poetic Responses: Mahon, Longley
Week 3. Heaney’s North (1975) and its Critics
Week 4. Early Troubles Fiction: Johnston
Week 5. Early Troubles Fiction: MacLaverty
Week 6. Forums for Debate: Friel and Field Day
Week 7. Reading Week
Week 8. Poetry of the 1980s: Muldoon, Carson
Week 9. Further Dramatic Responses: Parker
Week 10. The Uses of Translation
Week 11. Later Troubles Fiction: McNamee
Week 12. Later Troubles Fiction: Madden
Primary Texts
Michael Longley, Collected Poems (Jonathan Cape)
Derek Mahon, Selected Poems (Penguin), Collected Poems or New Collected
Poems (Both Gallery)
Seamus Heaney, Opened Ground: Poems 1966–1996 (Faber– or see individual
collections Wintering Out and North) and The Cure at Troy (Faber)
Jennifer Johnston, Shadows on our Skin (Headline)
Bernard MacLaverty, Cal (Vintage)
Brian Friel, Plays 1& 2 (Faber – see The Freedom of the City, Translations,
Fathers and Sons, Making History)
Paul Muldoon, Quoof (Faber – repr. in Poems 1968–1998)
Ciaran Carson, The Irish for No (Gallery/Bloodaxe – repr. in Collected Poems and
key poems in selected volume The Ballad of H.M.S Belfast)
Stewart Parker, Northern Star and Pentecost – available in Plays 2 (Metheun)
Eoin MacNamee, Resurrection Man (Picador/Faber)
Deirdre Madden, One by One in the Darkness (Faber)
Background Reading
Paul Bew, Peter Gibbon and Henry Patterson, Northern Ireland 1921–2001
(2002)
Richard Kirkland, Literature and Culture in Northern Ireland Since 1965 (1996)
Edna Longley, Poetry in the Wars (1986) and The Living Stream (1997)
Peter McDonald, Mistaken Identities (1997)
Marc Mulholland, Northern Ireland: A Very Short Introduction (2002)
Michael Parker, Northern Irish Literature 1956–2006, 2 vols (2007)
Please note that more specific bibliography for individual lectures will be given
each week