Module Information

Module Identifier
EN38920
Module Title
Other Worlds: Utopia To Lilliput
Academic Year
2013/2014
Co-ordinator
Professor Sarah Hutton
Semester
Semester 2
Other Staff
 

Course Delivery

Delivery Type Delivery length / details
Seminars / Tutorials 10 seminars, each of 2 hours duration
 

Assessment

Assessment Type Assessment length / details Proportion
Semester Assessment 30-minute group oral prsentation  40%
Semester Assessment 1 x 2500 word essay  60%
Supplementary Assessment Resubmit any failed elements and/or make good any missing elements. 

Learning Outcomes

On completion of this module, students should be able to:

1. demonstrate a detailed knowledge of Early Modern texts;

2. articulate this knowledge in the form of reasoned critical analysis of particular texts;

3. locate the texts studied in appropriate literary, historical, and cultural contexts;

4. demonstrate an engagement with relevant aspects of recent scholarly and/or critical debates about the texts studied;

5. Demonstrate through oral presentation a critical understanding of the inter-relationships between and contexts of Early Modern Utopian writing and its analogues.

Brief description


 
 This module explores early modern literary representations of imagined worlds, which register the impact of discovery of the New World. The most inventive response was Thomas More's Utopia a new literary genre where society itself becomes the subject matter of fiction. More's Utopia was in its turn widely imitated and adapted in response to changing issues in different contexts, contributing to the development of other genres. The course will examine the inter-textual relationship between utopian fiction and its comic, serious and satirical analogues from the Renaissance through to Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, while at the same time relating individual texts to the historical context in which they were produced.

Aims


 
 This option extends the range and variety of modules on early modern writing. It will be a genre-based course which focuses on Utopias and travel-writing in early-modern writing relating to imagined societies, in order to explore the context and development of Utopian writing from its Renaissance beginnings through its early-modern modulations.

Content

1. Introduction: ideal places and imagined journeys: Plato, Lucian
2. Voyages West: selections from Montaigne, Ralegh, Harriot.
3. Utopian fiction, a new genre: More's Utopia (1516)
4. The English context of More's Utopia (1516)
5. Analogues of Utopia: Bacon, New Atlantis (1627)
6. Anticipating Crusoe: Henry Neville: The Isle of Pines (1668)
7. A voyage east: Denis Veiras The History of the Sevarites (1675)
8. Out of this World: Aphra Behn, The Emperor of the Moone (1688), and her translation of Fontenelle's A Discovery
of New Worlds in the Moone
9. Satirical worlds: Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels (1726)
10. Overview

Module Skills

Skills Type Skills details
Application of Number N/A
Communication Written communication in the form of essays Oral communication in seminars and formative presentation Oral communication and presentation in summative presentation
Improving own Learning and Performance Developing own research skills Developing time-management skills
Information Technology Use of electronic resources, e.g. powerpoint in oral presntation
Personal Development and Career planning Critical self-reflection and the development of communication skills.
Problem solving Formulating and developing an extended argument
Research skills Developing advanced independent study Relating literary texts to historical and interpretative contexts.
Subject Specific Skills Detailed critical and contextual analysis of literary texts and evaluation of broad theoretical concepts
Team work Developing team working skills through group presentation

Notes

This module is at CQFW Level 6