| Unit name | Elegy and Visual Culture |
|---|---|
| Unit code | ENGL20107 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | I/5 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12) |
| Unit director | Professor. Leah Tether |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
None. |
| Co-requisites |
None. |
| School/department | Department of English |
| Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
This unit will be taught by Anne Baden-Daintree.
Elegy is one of the poetic modes most rooted in history and tradition, yet it is also a site for much formal experimentation, as well as being an influencing force in a range of other art forms. This unit will explore the tradition of elegy in poetry in English from the sixteenth century to the present day, together with the psychoanalytical basis of contemporary elegiac theory, and the interaction between the written word and visual and material cultures. It will appeal to students with an interest in the relationships between art and literature, and literature and medicine. Students will be encouraged to explore a range of visual materials alongside the literary texts, including photography, funeral monuments, painting, film, performance art, landscape installation, and textile art; this will largely be through online resources, but visits to relevant sites, exhibitions and screenings will also be encouraged. Seminars may include some groupwork in creative response to such material.
Unit Aims:
1. To develop an overview of the development of the poetic genre of elegy in English with a focus on contemporary poetry.
2. To introduce students to the theoretical context of elegy, and the medical models on which much of it is based.
3. To explore the influence of elegy on a wider range of literary and visual art forms, in both personal and public mourning and commemoration.
On successful completion of this unit students will be able to demonstrate:
1. A detailed knowledge of a range of poetic elegies, elegiac memoirs and associated art works from the sixteenth century to the present day.
2. The ability to reflect critically on ways in which the social and cultural environment affects the creative expression of grief and mourning.
3. A critical understanding of the development of the elegiac mode in English poetry, and its influence on a range of visual arts and other literary forms.
4. A critical understanding of a range of theoretical, social, psychoanalytical, and religious responses to bereavement, together with the ability to site this historical perspective alongside current bereavement practice.
5. The ability to analyse and compare material in different genres and/or media, and reflect critically on the interactions between different art forms.
6. Skills in academic writing, close textual analysis, argumentation, and evaluation of evidence from primary texts, other primary source material, and critical literature, appropriate to Level I/5
1 x 2 hour weekly seminars.
Both summative essays map ILOs 1-6.
Milton, Lycidas
Tennyson, In Memoriam
Anne Carson, Nox
Freud, Mourning and Melancholia
K. Weisman, ed., The Oxford Handbook of the Elegy
Peter Sacks, The English Elegy: Studies in the Genre from Spenser to Yeats
