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Unit information: Literature 1 (1200-1500) for Joint Honours in 2011/12

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Unit name Literature 1 (1200-1500) for Joint Honours
Unit code ENGL20202
Credit points 20
Level of study I/5
Teaching block(s) Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12)
Unit director Professor. Archibald
Open unit status Not open
Pre-requisites

None.

Co-requisites

None.

School/department Department of English
Faculty Faculty of Arts

Description including Unit Aims

No previous knowledge of Middle English is required for this unit. Students are taught to read Middle English and are introduced to some of the major authors and works of the fourteenth and fifteenth Centuries - e.g. Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde; Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the elegy Pearl; Langland's The Vision of Piers Plowman; and Malory's Morte D'Arthur. Aims:

The aim of this unit is to give students a grounding in Middle English literature of the 14th and 15th centuries. This literature will be studied in the original language. At the end of this unit, students should have developed a basic command of Middle English language. We also aim to give students and understanding of the distinctive qualities of medieval literature, as well as an understanding of the ethos and aesthetics of some important writers of the period.

Intended Learning Outcomes

Learning objectives include the ability to develop and express, in lucid and correct prose, cogent arguments in essays; the ability to select and analyse pertinent passages from the literary text that would support such arguments; the ability to make intelligent use of secondary criticism and theoretical perspectives (where appropriate); mastery of the technical vocabulary and analytical tools of literary criticism and of the conventions of academic style and referencing.

Teaching Information

3 lectures and 1 tutorial a week, plus 1 to 1 consultation hours where desired.

Assessment Information

  • Short essay, 1,000 words max (33%)
  • Long essay, 2,000 words max (66%)

Reading and References

  • Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, ed. by Jill Mann (Penguin, 2005)
  • ---------------------, Troilus and Criseyde, ed. by Barry Windeatt (Penguin, 2003)
  • Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur, ed. by Helen Cooper (Oxford, 1998).
  • The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript (Exeter: Exeter University Press, rp. 2002)

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