Module Information
Course Delivery
Delivery Type | Delivery length / details |
---|---|
Lecture | 20 x 1 hour |
Seminars / Tutorials | 10 x 1 hour weekly seminars |
Assessment
Assessment Type | Assessment length / details | Proportion |
---|---|---|
Semester Assessment | 1 x 2000 word essay. | 33% |
Semester Exam | 3 Hours 2 question exam. | 67% |
Supplementary Assessment | Resubmit or resit failed elements and/or make good any missing elements | |
Supplementary Exam | 3 Hours Resit exam Resit examination | 100% |
Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of this module students should be able to:
Demonstrate knowledge of a representative range of literary texts from the twentieth century.
Locate these texts in appropriate cultural and historical contexts.
Artiulate a detailed critical analysis of individual texts from the period that shows an understanding of their distinctive qualities.
Relate texts from the period either to each other or to a common theme.
Brief description
The module offers students the opportunity to engage with the range and variety of twentieth-century writing. By focusing on texts from a range of genres, it seeks to give a sense of teh movement between the poles of realism and experimentation over the course of the period. There is a 'Text' and a 'Context' lecture on each of the texts. The introductory and concluding lectures discuss a range of adjacent texts and relevant contexts, as appropriate, usually without explicit reference to the set texts. The 'Context' lectures on each set text also discuss a range of adjacent texts and relevant contexts, but keyed explicitly to the set text in question.
Content
SECTION A
2-3. Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (1899-1900)
4-5. James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)
6-7. T.S. Eliot, Selected Poems (1917-1927)
8-9. Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway (1927)
SECTION B
10-11. W.H. Auden, Selected Poems (1930s-1950s)
12-13. John Osborne, Look Back in Anger (1956)
14-15. Sam Selvon, The Lonely Londoners (1956)
16-17. Sylvia Plath, Ariel (1965)
18-19 Doris Lessing, The Good Terrorist (1985)
20. Concluding Lecture
Module Skills
Skills Type | Skills details |
---|---|
Communication | (Written) in essays and examination answers students are encouraged to express their ideas articulately and fluently (Oral) seminars are based on group discussion and brief student presentations |
Improving own Learning and Performance | Students are encouraged to take more personal initiative in the planning and conduct of their preparation for assignments than at Level 1, and to make use of a broader range of resources; formal feedback on essays and informal feedback on seminar participation helps students measure their improvement |
Information Technology | Substantial use is made of electronic text-databases (EEBO, LION), of electronic journals, and of Blackboard, and students are encouraged to familiarise themselves with these |
Personal Development and Career planning | Only insofar as the module covers key areas of literature in which students intending to teach English would need to demonstrate competence; or which might be related to future academic research |
Problem solving | In essays and examination answers: by formulating and putting into practice a critical approach appropriate to text and topic set |
Research skills | In preparation for seminars, essays, and exams: by investigation of literary texts, associated critical and scholarly writing, and the relationship of literary texts to historical an cultural contexts |
Subject Specific Skills | Close reading of literary texts; grasp of generic and intertextual relationships between texts; identification and analysis of appropriate historical and cultural contexts |
Team work | Informal group work in seminars |
Reading List
General Text(2007.) Eye rhymes :Sylvia Plath's art of the visual /edited by Kathleen Connors and Sally Bayley. Oxford University Press Primo search Should Be Purchased
Eliot, T.S Selected Poems (1919-1927) Primo search Joseph Conrad (2008) Heart of Darkness Oxford University Press Primo search Joyce, James (June 2008) A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Oxford University Press Primo search Lessing, Doris (Aug. 2007) The Good Terrorist HarperCollins Publishers Limited Primo search Plath, Sylvia (June 2007) Ariel:The Restored Edition Faber & Faber, Limited Primo search Selvon, Sam (Aug. 2006) The Lonely Londoners Penguin Classics [Imprint] Primo search W H Auden (editor John Fuller) (2005) W H Auden: Poems selected by John Fuller Faber and Faber Primo search Woolf, Virginia (July 2008) Mrs Dalloway 2nd ed. Oxford University Press Primo search Recommended Background
(1980, c1977.) Aesthetics and politics /Ernst Bloch ... [et al.]; afterword by Fredric Jameson ; translation editor, Ronald Taylor. Verso Primo search (1990.) Literature in the modern world :critical essays and documents /edited by Dennis Walder. Oxford University Press in association with the Open University Primo search (1999.) The Cambridge companion to modernism /edited by Michael Levenson. Cambridge University Press Primo search Barker, Francis, et.al. (1979) The Sociology of Literature: Vol 1: The Politics of Modernism. University of Essex Primo search Bell, Daniel. (1976.) The cultural contradictions of capitalism /Daniel Bell. Heinemann Primo search Benjamin, A (ed) (1990) The Problems of Modernity Routledge Primo search Bergonzi, Bernard. (1986.) The myth of modernism and twentieth century literature /Bernard Bergonzi. Harvester Press Primo search Berman, Marshall. (1983.) All that is solid melts into air :the experience of modernity /Marshall Berman. Verso Primo search Bowlby, Rachel. (1988.) Virginia Woolf : feminist destinations /Rachel Bowlby. Blackwell Primo search Bradbury, Malcolm and McFarlane, James (eds) (1976) Modernism: 1890-1930 Penguin Primo search Collier, Peter and Davies, Judy (eds) (1990.) Modernism and the European Unconscious St. Martin's Press Primo search Danson Brown, Richard and Gupta, Suman (2005) Aestheticism & Modernism Open University Press Primo search Fokkema, D.W (1987) Modernist Conjectures C Hurst Primo search Foster, Hal (ed) (1983.) The Anti-aesthetic :essays on postmodern culture Bay Press Primo search Fuller, Peter. (1983.) Aesthetics after Modernism. Writers and Readers Primo search Huyssen, Andreas (1988, c1986.) After the great divide :modernism, mass culture, postmodernism /Andreas Huyssen. Macmillan Primo search Josipovici, Gabriel (1977.) The lessons of modernism, and other essays /Gabriel Josipovici. Macmillan Primo search Lunn, Eugene. (c1982, 1985 pri) Marxism and modernism :an historical study of Luk acs, Brecht, Benjamin and Adorno /Eugene Lunn. Verso Primo search Mendelson, E (1981) Early Auden Faber Primo search Morretti, Franco (1983) Signs Taken For Wonders Verso Primo search Reiss, Timothy J. (1982.) The discourse of modernism /Timothy J. Reiss. Cornell University Press Primo search Ross, Andrew (1986.) The failure of modernism :symptoms of American poetry /Andrew Ross. Columbia University Press Primo search Spender, Stephen (1963.) The struggle of the modern /by Stephen Spender. University of California Press Primo search Stead, C. K. (1986.) Pound, Yeats, Eliot and the modernist movement /C.K. Stead. Macmillan Primo search Svarny, Erik (1988) 'The men of 1914' :T.S. Eliot and early modernism /Erik Svarny. Open University Press Primo search White, Allon. (1981.) The uses of obscurity :the fiction of early modernism /of Allon White. Routledge & Kegan Paul Primo search Williams, Raymond (1961.) Culture and society 1780-1950 /Raymond Williams. Penguin Books Primo search Williams, Raymond (1989(1993 print) The politics of modernism :against the new conformists /by Raymond Williams; edited and introduced by Tony Pinkney. Verso Primo search
Notes
This module is at CQFW Level 5