Medievalism in English Literature

2022/2023

Academic Year

ENG

Instruction in English

3

ECTS credits

Delivered at:

School of Philological Studies

Course type:

Elective course

When:

1 year, 2 module

Instructors

Volkonskaya, Maria A.

Daria, Glebova

Course Syllabus

Abstract

The course is dedicated to representations of medieval themes and imagery in Modern English literary corpus (19-21 c.). Students will read several key texts from the medieval and modern period and learn how to analyse the usage of medieval elements in modern texts as well as cinematography. Pre-requisites: to fulfill the requirements of the course students need to have a good command of written and spoken English (required CEFR language proficiency level is from upper-intermediate (B2) to advanced (C1)).

Learning Objectives

• To introduce students to the key concepts of medievalism studies as well as to the basic principles of comparative analysis of English literary texts from different time periods.
• To increase students’ proficiency in critically reading, reflecting, analyzing, and interpreting a range of assigned primary and secondary sources from a historical and contextual perspective, both orally and in writing.
• To help students structure their own research arguments about the usage of medieval elements in literature and cinema.

Expected Learning Outcomes

• To know key events and cultural developments related to Old and Middle English literature; to read critically, comprehend, and produce clear, informed, independent opinions and judgements on the assigned key text and its modern reception; to formulate (both orally and in writing) arguable claims about them and react to others’ ideas
• To know key events and cultural developments related to medieval elements in 16th-century English literature; to read critically, comprehend, and produce clear, informed, independent opinions and judgements on the assigned key text and its modern reception; to formulate (both orally and in writing) arguable claims about them and react to others’ ideas.
• To know key events and cultural developments related to medieval elements in British Pre-Romanticism and Romanticism; to read critically, comprehend, and produce clear, informed, independent opinions and judgements on the assigned key text and its reception; to formulate (both orally and in writing) arguable claims about them and react to others’ ideas
• To know key events and cultural developments related to medieval elements in British modernism; to read critically, comprehend, and produce clear, informed, independent opinions and judgements on the assigned key text and its reception; to formulate (both orally and in writing) arguable claims about them and react to others’ ideas

Course Contents

• Course introduction
• The Elizabethan Age
• Romanticism
• British literature at the turn of the 20th century

Assessment Elements

• Seminar Participation
• Essay
  The written examination consists of a literary analysis essay (at least 5 typed A4 pages (1500 words or more) in MLA style PLUS a Works Cited page), the purpose of which is to carefully examine any theme discussed over the course (or connected to the course) and to present an argument / claim about it. The list of suggestions and guidelines will be given in advance. The essay topic should be approved by the course instructors beforehand. Plagiarism will not be tolerated. For each plagiarized sentence, the student loses one point (for example, 8 → 7). If there are more than three plagiarized sentences in one’s work, the grade for the essay is a zero. The essay should be uploaded before the deadline. If one’s essay is late, it is not accepted or assessed – the grade is a zero. This paper should incorporate at least two secondary sources.

Interim Assessment

• 2022/2023 2nd module
  0.25 * Seminar Participation + 0.75 * Essay

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

• Medieval Shakespeare : pasts and presents, , 2013
• Rethinking historicism from Shakespeare to Milton, , 2012
• Shakespearean tragedy : Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Bradley, A. C., 1992
• The Cambridge companion to British Romanticism, , 2005
• The Cambridge companion to Old English literature, Godden, M., 2013
• The Cambridge companion to T. S. Eliot, , 2005
• The Cambridge history of twentieth-century English literature, , 2012

Recommended Additional Bibliography

• A companion to Shakespeare and performance, , 2008
• A grammar of Old English. Vol.1: Phonology, Hogg, R. M., 2011
• A grammar of Old English. Vol.2: Morphology, Hogg, R. M., 2011
• Shakespeare's foreign worlds : national and transnational identities in the Elizabethan age, Levin, C., 2009
• T.S. Eliot : a guide for the perplexed, Ellis, S., 2009
• The Cambridge guide to the worlds of Shakespeare. Vol.1: Shakespeare's world, 1500-1660, , 2017
• The Cambridge guide to the worlds of Shakespeare. Vol.2: The world's Shakespeare, 1660- present, , 2017
• The Cambridge history of English literature, 1660-1780, , 2005
• The history of English. Vol. 2: Old English, , 2017
• The Oxford companion to English literature, , 2000
• The Oxford handbook of Shakespeare, , 2012
• Voltaire, Goethe, Schlegel, Coleridge, , 2010