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.