Module Information
Course Delivery
Assessment
| Assessment Type | Assessment length / details | Proportion |
|---|---|---|
| Semester Assessment | Coursework Assignment 1x 5000-word essay or 3000-word creative piece (pro rata for poetry) and 2000-word commentary | 100% |
| Supplementary Assessment | Coursework Assignment 1x 5000-word essay or 3000-word creative piece (pro rata for poetry) and 2000-word commentary | 100% |
Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of this module students should be able to:
Demonstrate a thorough understanding of a range of medievalisms.
Analyse the cultural work accomplished by 21st-century texts that take their inspiration from medieval texts and culture.
Engage with relevant theoretical approaches as appropriate.
Discuss examples of medievalism in a critically-informed, focussed, and structured manner.
Brief description
This module explores a range of 21st-century texts that take their inspiration from medieval texts and culture. From Seamus Heaney’s oft-discussed translation of ‘Hwæt’ into ‘So’ in his Beowulf to Kazuo Ishiguro’s imagining of a post-Arthurian time of peace between Britons and Saxons, the Middle Ages have fostered a range of 21st-century medievalisms that articulate and explore the value and relevance of the medieval for early 21st-century culture and society. Between Heaney and Ishiguro, our journey through these medievalisms will have us witness a single mother struggle to raise her son in the hills above a US town, and get to know a range of British people—both contemporary and imagined-medieval—try desperately to negotiate the vagaries of life. These 21st-century medievalisms illustrate the continued currency and relevance of the Middle Ages, and in doing so they challenge us to reassess our beliefs and expectations.
Content
Session 2: Seamus Heaney’s Beowulf
Session 3: Maria Dahvana Headley’s Beowulf: A New Translation
Session 4: Maria Dahvana Headley’s The Mere Wife
Session 5: Workshop
Session 6: Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant
Session 7: Fflur Dafydd’s The White Trail
Session 8: Peter Ackroyd’s The Clerkenwell Tales
Session 9: Marilyn Nelson’s The Cachoeira Tales
Session 10: Workshop
Module Skills
| Skills Type | Skills details |
|---|---|
| Communication | Written: by expressing ideas in coherent ways. Oral: through class discussion and small group activities. |
| Improving own Learning and Performance | Through independent and directed research and reading. By engaging with assessment feedback in order to raise attainment. |
| Information Technology | By using word processing packages, using AberLearn Blackboard and other electronic resources, submitting assignment’s via Turnitin. |
| Personal Development and Career planning | Through developing critical self-reflection and the development of transferable, ICT, communication and research skills |
| Problem solving | By evaluative analysis and the use of critical skills. |
| Research skills | By directed and independent research and the synthesizing of information in critically-evaluative ways. |
| Subject Specific Skills | Through the reading, writing and researching skills involved in the study of language change. Through the use of and understanding language change for analyses of literary texts. |
| Team work | Students will have the opportunity to work in teams for some group activities. |
Notes
This module is at CQFW Level 7