Aims and objectives
This module does not attempt the impossible task of comprehensively surveying this long stretch of English literary history, but aims instead to provide some useful co-ordinates from which students may take their bearings. The texts have been selected in order to illustrate the rich variety within and between the dominant literary genres of the period, and to raise and question conflicting versions of cultural history.

Brief description
The module is arranged into three independent but thematically interwoven strands: (a) late medieval texts from the years 1380-1430; (b) poetry and prose from the years 1580-1630; (c) plays from the years 1580-1630. Assessment is by one x 2,500 word essay, and a three-hour, two question examination paper. Students will be able to choose from which of the three strands they wish to take their essay subject; but will be expected to answer questions from the other two strands in the examination paper.

The three lecture-strands will run in parallel throughout the semester; the weekly seminar will provide opportunities to discuss texts from all three strands. The selection of seminar texts may vary between group and group.

Medieval (one lecture per week)

• The Middle Ages and the Renaissance: New Perspectives
• Gender, Power and Romance in the Later Middle Ages
• Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales: The A-fragment
• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight*
• Devotion and Drama in the Later Middle Ages
• Margery Kempe* and Women Visionaries
• Selected Mystery Plays

Renaissance Poetry and Prose (one lecture per week)

• Representing the Renaissance: La Reine Margot (film)
• Sir Philip Sidney, Astrophil and Stella*
• poems by Mary Sidney (xerox)
• Poems by Mary Wroth
• John Donne, Elegies* and Songs and Sonets*
• Christopher Marlowe, Hero and Leander*
• William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis*
• Mary Wroth, Urania Book I
• poems and prose by John Donne*

Renaissance Drama (one lecture per week)
Spectacles of State

• Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine Parts I and II
• William Shakespeare, Henry IV Part I*
• Shakespeare, Coriolanus
• Public Worlds/Private Spaces
• John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi*
• Thomas Middleton and William Rowley The Changeling
• Students will need to possess copies of:

Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales: The A-Fragment, ed Michael Alexander (Penguin)
An Anthology of Seventeenth-Century Prose Fiction, ed Paul Salzman (World's Classics) (for Urania)
Marlowe, Tamburlaine, ed J.W.Harper (New Mermaid).
Shakespeare, Coriolanus, ed. G.R. Hibbard (Penguin).
Middleton and Rowley, The Changeling, ed. J. Daalder (New Mermaid)

The remaining texts, marked *, can be found either whole or in part in the Norton Anthology of English Literature, 6th edition, volume 1, and in all these cases the anthology offers enough material for students using it to keep up with lectures and seminars. For purposes of essay writing and examination preparation students would be well advised to supplement the anthology with individual editions of the texts they have chosen for detailed study.

Recommended editions are:

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, ed J.J. Anderson (Everyman)
The Book of Margery Kempe, ed Barry Windeatt (Penguin)
A.C. Cawley (ed.) Everyman and Medieval Miracle Plays (Everyman)
Silver Poets of the Sixteenth Century, ed. D.Brooks-Davies (Everyman)
John Donne, Selected Poetry, ed John Carey (World's Classics)
Christopher Marlowe, Complete Poems, ed Stephen Orgel (Penguin)
Shakespeare, Henry IV Part I, ed D.Bevington (World's Classics)
Webster, The Duchess of Malfi, ed E.Brennan (New Mermaid)

Learning outcomes
On the completion of this module students will typically be able to:
demonstrate a detailed knowledge of a range of texts drawn from the medieval and early modern periods;
articulate this knowledge in the form of a reasoned critical analysis of particular texts;
locate the texts studied in appropriate literary, historical, and/or cultural contexts;
explain and engage with relevant aspects of recent scholarly and/or critical debates about the texts studied.