Course level

Undergraduate

Faculty

Humanities and Social Sciences

School

Communication & Arts School

Units

2

Duration

One Semester

Class hours

2 Seminar hours

Restricted

Course offering may be cancelled unless a minimum of 20 students enrol.

Assessment methods

Tutorial participation and preparation; short essay; research essay.

Course enquiries

Dr Jennifer Clement

Study Abroad

This course is pre-approved for Study Abroad and Exchange students.

This course is not currently offered, please contact the school.

Course description

What is the 'early modern'? As Stephen Greenblatt surmises, it was a period in which the world took a 'swerve' towards the modern. The Europeans 'discovered' the new world of the Americas; merchants became global adventurers; new technologies emerged; belief faltered and secular culture developed. Knowledge itself was newly negotiated as a process of discovery in which the learner possessed new agency and responsibility, and in which the role of 'imagination' as we recognise it today was effectively transformed. This course explores early modern British literature in these particular historical, cultural and intellectual contexts. It introduces students to works by key sixteenth- and seventeenth-century authors which may include Thomas More, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Donne, Andrew Marvel, Shakespeare, Montaigne, Francis Bacon, Margaret Cavendish, and Aphra Behn; and asks what part Literature played in the dynamic exchange between old and new worlds that underpins our swerve towards the modern.

Archived offerings

Course offerings Location Mode Course Profile
Semester 1, 2016 (29/02/2016 - 25/06/2016) St Lucia Internal Course Profile