Course finder

<< return to browsing

Semester 1

Early Modern Tragedy (ENLI10368)

Course Website

https://www.ed.ac.uk/literatures-languages-cultures/english-literature/undergraduate/current/honours

Subject

English Literature

College

CAHSS

Credits

20

Normal Year Taken

3

Delivery Session Year

2023/2024

Pre-requisites

Visiting students must have completed 4 English Literature courses at grade B or above. We will only consider University/College level courses, and we do not consider civilisation & other interdisciplinary courses, freshman seminars, writing/composition courses or film/cinema/media courses; visiting students who have taken multiple courses in literature in other languages, should have passed at least two courses in English Literature as well. **Please note that this course may incur additional costs to purchase core texts** **Please see Additional Restrictions below**

Course Summary

This course examines a wide range of Elizabethan and Jacobean tragic drama, including plays by Marlowe, Shakespeare, Carey, Middleton and Webster. It will explore variety of tragic modes in the period--including revenge drama, 'heroic' tragedy, closet theatre, tragi-comedy and domestic tragedy'as well as the range of theatrical contexts and staging practices that developed across the sixteenth and seventeenth century.

Course Description

Tragedy engages with some of the most urgent, as well as enduring, problems that societies and individuals face. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were one of the great periods of tragic composition and this course will explore some of its most significant examples. The course will stress the variety of tragic modes--including revenge drama, historical and heroic tragedy, closet drama, and domestic tragedy, as well as the range of theatrical contexts and staging practices that developed across the Elizabethan and Jacobean period. In tragic drama, early modern dramatists explored how different societies experienced crisis and the political and ethical problems this exposed: questions of power and sovereignty, religious, cultural and racial difference, justice and injustice, mortality and loss, sexual hierarchy and social inequality, political conformity and resistance, liberty and oppression. The course will consider how dramatists responded to these key concerns and it will also examine different conceptual understandings of tragedy.

Assessment Information

Written Exam 0%, Coursework 100%, Practical Exam 0%

Special Arrangements

Unless you are nominated on an English Literature exchange agreement, visiting students are only permitted to enrol in one 3rd year English Literature course each, per semester, before the start of the relevant semester’s welcome period – and spaces on each course are limited so cannot be guaranteed for any student. Enrolment in a second course from this group will depend on whether there are still spaces available in the September Welcome Period, and cannot be guaranteed, and students will not be permitted to enrol in three 3rd year English Literature courses in the same semester at any time. It is NOT appropriate for students to contact staff within this subject area to ask for an exception to be made; all enquiries to enrol in these courses must be made through the CAHSS Visiting Student Office. This is due to the limited number of spaces available in this very popular subject area.

view the timetable and further details for this course