Brief description
Explores the relationship between literary theory and methodology and the practice of literary analysis, with respect to a group of texts.

Outline syllabus
The twelve 'core' texts are as follows:
1. Geoffrey Chaucer, The Nun's Priest's Tale
2. William Shakespeare, The Tempest
3. Daniel Defoe, Roxana
4. Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights
5. Alfred Tennyson, Selected Poems
6. Herman Melville, Billy Budd
7. Henry James, The Turn of the Screw
8. Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
9. James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
10. Virginia Woolf, Between the Acts
11. Derek Walcott, Selected Poems
12. Toni Morrison, Beloved

The four broad theoretical headings, which all groups will use, are:
1) Politics
2) Literary Context and Authorship
3) Textuality
4) Sex and Gender

Tutors will decide individually on the order of treatment of these topics, and will match topic to text according to their own judgement. Tutors may wish to touch on several of the topics for a given text, rather than matching each of the four literary texts to just one of the four broad topics.

The module is assessed by two pieces of course work, and there is no examination. The assessment tasks will be designed so as to allow students to demonstrate (i) their grasp of relevant aspects of critical theory, (ii) their skill in applying theory to text, and (iii) their understanding of the problems and opportunities entailed in doing so.