Module Identifier EN34120  
Module Title WOMEN, WRITING, HISTORY: 1660-1740  
Academic Year 2000/2001  
Co-ordinator Dr Sarah Prescott  
Semester Semester 1  
Course delivery Seminars / Tutorials   20 Hours 10 x 2 hrs  
Assessment Continuous assessment   2 essays (2,500 words each)   100%  
  Resit assessment   Resubmit any failed elements and/or make good any missing elements.    

Brief description
This module will look at what questions are raised by a study of women's writing in this period such as whether it is possible to construct a female literary tradition separate from male writing; how conceptions of female literary authority change through history; how women writers construct their authorial identities; how this self-fashioning shapes the work they produce; and what relation women writers have to the genres they employ. A range of writing from poetry, drama, romance, novel, political satire, autobiography and letter writing will be employed to examine constructions of female authorship.

Outline syllabus
Feminist literary history presents a major challenge to traditional accounts of Restoration and early eighteenth-century literature, but what other questions are raised by a study of women's writing in this period? Is it possible (or desirable) to construct a female literary tradition that is separate from male writing? How do conceptions of femininity and female literary authority change through history? How do women writers construct their authorial identities and how does this self-fashioning shape the work they produce? What relation do women writers have to the genres they employ? To investigate these questions we will study a range of writing from poetry, drama, romance and the novel to political satire, autobiography and letter writing. In addition, the module will examine some of the key theoretical propositions of feminist theory and consider whether current models of feminist criticism and literary history help to explain the constructions of female authorship and women's writing under scrutiny. The module will be taught in two hour weekly seminars, which will be introduced by seminar papers.