Forthcoming course

Wordsworth and Coleridge - the First Romantics. Further details of course to follow.

Current Course - Introduction to Early Modern Drama: Shakespeare, Marlowe, and the Occult

Week 1 Introduction to the playwrights, their historical background, and their language.
Week 2 The Tempest, Part I reflections of society and culture
Week 3 The Tempest, Part II art and nature, magic and performance
Week 4 Dr. Faustus, Part I the playwright in his cultural context
Week 5 Dr Faustus, Part II drama, tradition and subversion
Week 6 Shakespeare, Marlowe, and the use of magic

English Drama before Shakespeare

 Week 1 – Introducing early drama
 Week 2 – Creation to Noah – variations on a theme of disobedience
 Week 3 – Towneley Second Shepherds’ Play – comedy, witchcraft, and cunning

 Week 4 –York Crucifixion and The Last Judgment

 Week 5 – Morality plays including Mankind

 Week 6 – Tudor Interludes including The Play of the Weather and King Johan

The Development of the English Language 600 -1600 AD

Week 1 – Introduction to Anglo-Saxon and its precursors.

Week 2 – From Anglo-Norman to Middle English – language and literary changes

Week 3 – The 14th century: Chaucer’s English and its political significance

Week 4 – The sensitivity of language in the 15th century – a dramatic perspective

Week 5 – Humanism, anxiety, and the Grammarians’ War in the early 16th century

Week 6 – From the Reformation to Shakespeare: an explosion of language

English Poetry and History

 Week 1 - Introduction and Early Medieval Poetry
 Week 2 – Medieval Lyrics and Affective Piety (meanwhile in Italy…)
 Week 3 – Sonnets, Shakespeare and the Metaphysical Poets
 Week 4 – Civil War and 17th Century Women Poets
 Week 5 – Revolutions: Politics, mysticism and Romantics
 Week 6 – 19th Century Aesthetics, the First World War, and its aftermath

The Faerie Queene

 Week 1 – Introduction to The Faerie Queene, its author, and the Red Crosse Knight

 Week 2 – Sir Guyon’s encounters with dangerous ladies and the Bower of Bliss.
 Week 3 – Britomart – a most surprising knight, and the Garden of Adonis.
 Week 4 – Friendships, conflicts - and Elizabethan geography.
 Week 5 – Sir Artegall and Prince Arthur have a hard fight for justice.
 Week 6 – the unbeatable Blatant Beast.

Shakespeare and Marlowe

• Week 1 - Introducing late Elizabethan Drama
• Week 2 and 3 - The Tempest
• Week 3 and 4 - Dr Faustus
• Week 6 - Comparing the plays

Fourteenth Century English Verse Romances

• Week 1 - Introducing medieval romances, their audiences and issues
• Week 2 and 3 - Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
• Week 4 - Sir Orfeo
• Week 5 and 6 - Bevis of Hampton

Women in Medieval English Society

 Week 1 – Introduction to medieval women and their lives in medieval society
 Week 2 – beginning with real women: Margaret Paston and her busy life
 Week 3 – Margery Kempe and her unusual life
 Week 4 – fictional women in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales
 Week 5 – women in medieval Mystery (religious) drama
 Week 6 – women in the Tudor Interludes (secular plays before Shakespeare)