Unit name | Writing the City: London 1550-1740 |
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Unit code | ENGL20069 |
Credit points | 20 |
Level of study | I/5 |
Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12) |
Unit director | Dr. John McTague |
Open unit status | Not open |
Pre-requisites |
None |
Co-requisites |
None |
School/department | Department of English |
Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
This unit looks at how writers and other practitioners imagined and interpreted London as it grew and changed at dizzying speed through the early modern period, and drew to it people from all walks of life. We will ask how writers imagined and interpreted urban geographies, and how those geographies in turn shaped the drama, poetry, and novels that were written there. We will read literary texts alongside sermons, pamphlets, advertisements, court records and other kinds of evidence. The unit examines the ways in which literature interacted with the city’s changing economic and material cultures, and how writers represent crime, the urban underworld and the market for illicit sex. It asks how aesthetic and other values were influenced by new tastes in fashion and luxury goods, and by the city’s new places and forms of exchange. The unit will also examine literature’s role in the construction and negotiation of urban identities and the city’s boundaries, how literature represents the place of men and women in the city, and how the city interacts with the stage and an emerging public sphere of print culture. The unit is explicitly designed to introduce students to high-level literary and historical research skills, both in the assessments (a group research project culminating in a research poster, as well as an exam), and in the weekly hands-on sessions where students will use research databases and other materials in order to answer questions or solve problems. Core literary texts may change from year to year. Works studied in previous years include Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders; Isabella Whitney, ‘Last Will and Testament’; Ben Jonson, The Alchemist; Alexander Pope, The Dunciad; Eliza Haywood, Fantomina. Students curious about which texts will feature on the unit in a given year should contact the unit convenor.
On successful completion of this unit, students will be able to:
Teaching will involve asynchronous and synchronous elements, including long- and short-form lectures, group discussion, research and writing activities, and peer dialogue. Students are expected to engage with the reading and participate fully with the weekly tasks and topics. Learning will be further supported through the opportunity for individual consultation.
Early English Books Online
Old Bailey Online
The Grub Street Project
Map of Early Modern London
Laurence Manley, Literature and Culture in Early Modern London (CUP, 1995)
Miranda Kaufman, Black Tudors (London: Oneworld, 2017)