English and drama

World Making

Module code: Q9133
Level 4
30 credits in spring semester
Teaching method: Seminar, Workshop, Lecture
Assessment modes: Essay, Portfolio

How does literature generate worlds? On this module, you’ll explore the foundational role literature plays in imagining and reimagining the world.

From the beginnings of literature in English to the rise of globalisation, this was a period of profound change that continues to shape our world. As writers, readers and audiences, women and men responded to such change in dazzlingly creative ways.

This involved reconsidering the idea of the world itself in a new form, alongisde:

• faith
• bodies
• race
• gender and desire
• literature.

Writers engaged in world-making through a wide range of writing, including:

• lyric poetry
• fantasy
• romance
• travel and colonial writing
• utopian fiction
• the beginnings of the novel.

As we read, we’ll ask how, why and for whom they generated such worlds. We’ll consider how medieval stories shape modern ways of understanding the self. We’ll also address how early modern travel writing influences later understandings of race, and the ways in which adventure literature from the past still matters for the literature we read today.

Module learning outcomes

• Situate literature within historical and cultural contexts in ways that enable critical interpretation.
• Demonstrate an understanding of the changing nature of literature written across the medieval and Renaissance periods.
• Detect and evaluate ambiguity, multiple meanings, and stylistic conventions through close reading and textual analysis.
• Effectively communicate information, arguments and analysis in a variety of forms and deploy key techniques of the discipline effectively.
• Demonstrate an understanding of the value of undertaking research into a particular aspect of English medieval and Renaissance culture.
• Indicate an awareness of the connections between the literature and contexts of the past and the present day.