Welcome to ENGL100
English Literature
ENGL100 is designed to broaden your knowledge of English literature and to equip you with the analytical skills required to study English literature at degree level. The course covers a number of different genres, spanning literary periods from Chaucer to the twenty-first century.
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The module aims to provide a survey of the last five hundred years of literature, and introduce classic and recent debates about literature. Focusing primarily on British literature, the course covers well known and lesser well known authors, tackling questions about the canon, genre and identity. You will receive lectures that introduce you to literary and filmic texts, as well as lectures that cover methodological and critical approaches to literature more generally. Lectures and seminars will take contrasting approaches to the past, ranging from the larger questions about identity and epochs, to the microscopic attention to word choice and literary tropes.
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What you will study
Term 1: Medieval to Renaissance (Weeks 1-5)
The course will begin by looking at some of the earliest works written in modern English. Going back over 500 years, we will look at works by Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Marlowe. As well as introducing critical approaches to these writings, we will also look at filmic adaptations of Chaucer and Shakespeare in order to think about how a narrative changes between prose, poetry, drama and film. We will also consider how key themes – such as sovereignty, agency and identity – travel across genres and forms.
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Term 1: Eighteenth Century to Romanticism (Weeks 7-10)
We will study two of the earliest and most influential novels in British literary history: Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko and Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. You will then be introduced to key British and American poets in the Romantic movement, whose writings on nature, landscape, politics and the self have proved so influential.
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Term 2: Victorian to Modernism (Weeks 11-15)
This section of the course turns to the Victorian period and its attention to social issues as well as the perceived promises and perils of science, industrialisation and imperialism. We also read one of the most well known novels of the turn of the century, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, and modernist poetry and prose by T. S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf.
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Term 2: Contemporary (Weeks 17-20)
As the course moves towards the twentieth and twenty-first century texts and theories, central issues that have thus far steered the course- human identity, agency, sovereignty, technology and change- are considered in relation to life in a postmodern, global, and hi-tech world. Through novels, film and poetry, the course considers the different kinds of attention given in these texts to the boundaries and multiple identities of being human.
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Term 3: Project-based Workshops (Weeks 21-24)
You will attend weekly 2-hour workshops on your chosen subject (chosen from a suite of options including such subjects as Literary Lancashire, Emily Dickinson, The Canterbury Tales and Charles Dickens). Led by a subject expert, you will work on a project brief in order to produce a specific output, such as a pamphlet, study guide, academic website or academic edition. The project aims to link specialist research-led teaching to real-world scenarios and practice-based approaches.
How is it assessed?
3 Essays, 1 Presentation,
2 In-Class Tests & Project
100% Coursework
Assessment Details:
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Essay Plan (0%)- Formative plan of Essay 1 with feedback from your tutor. Due week 3.
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Essay 1 (10%)- 1,500-word essay extending essay plan. Due week 6.
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Essay 2 (10%)- 2,500-word essay on a choice of topics. Due week 15.
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Group Presentation (10%)- oral presentation on an argument related to text, or texts, studied in a seminar. To be delivered in groups of 3 or 4 with accompanying notes and bibliography also submitted.
Due weeks 8, 9 & 10.
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In-Class Text (40%) – two tests administered during normal lecture times in week 20 (end of term 2): a close reading exercise and an essay exercise. Both test papers will be given out the week before. Due week 20.
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Project (30%) – Half of the mark will be given for the project produced in a small group and half of the mark will come from a reflective critical essay. Output (pamphlet/ book/ webpage).
Due week 24 & 26.
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How is it taught?
There are two 1-hour lectures and one 1-hour seminar per week.
Lectures are designed to give you broader context, ways of thinking about the text and further opportunities for your own study. Seminars, involving smaller group discussion, allow you to engage in a deeper critical conversation with tutors and peers. Click here to find out more.
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In weeks 21-24 students will be split into project groups. They will no longer have seminars with their tutors or lectures, instead study will move from the lecture-and-seminar format to a 2-hour seminar/workshop with the academic who leads the project.
All our lecturers are world-renowned researchers and respected academics. The department ranks highly in the TEF (Teaching Excellence Framework) every year. The following are just some of the staff members who teach on the module.
Dr Brian Baker
Brian delivers lectures on sci-fi topics such as Monsters in Film and Blade Runner?.His research interests are based around contemporary British fiction, science fiction, London fictions, masculinities, and film studies. His lectures are a firm favourite with our students!
Professor Sally Bushell
Sally delivers lectures on Wordsworth and Defoe. Her research interests reflect the closeness of Lancaster to the Lake district with a deep interest in British Romanticism and Wordsworth.
Dr Jo Carruthers
Jo delivers lectures on Walter Benjamin and the Realist Novel.
Her research interests are in Englishness, the Bible and Literature; literature and theology; place and space; and Victorian literature.
Professor John Schad
John delivers lectures on Marxist Literary Criticism and Modernism in Literature, looking in particular at Woolf and Eliot. His research interests include critical-creative writing; modernism; Victorian writing; literary theory; and the relationship between religion and literature.
Guest Lecturer
Professor Terry Eagleton is a distinguished visiting professor to the department. He is an internationally celebrated literary scholar and cultural theorist. Professor Eagleton has written around fifty books and is himself the subject of at least two monographs.
He is, according to The Independent, ‘'the man who succeeded F. R. Leavis as Britain's most influential academic critic.’
What our students say...
"Although sometimes challenging, I don't think there's been a week I haven't enjoyed."
"The most valuable parts of the module are probably the texts used and the course structure as a whole. There is a really good breadth and balance that has really improved my confidence in English Lit and I appreciate the way in which weeks are structured to focus on a text and also a relevant theory."
"I enjoyed the
freedom offered
when undertaking coursework essays."
"A coherent movement through the history of English Literature."
"I loved Dr. Brian Baker's lectures!"
"Learning all kinds of literature across a wide period of time allowed for a more freeing and varied course which is ideal for first year."