GSC2401

Shakespeare and the age of discovery

Patrick Morgan

8 points
* First semester
* 3 hours per week (2-hour lecture, 1-hour seminar)
* Gippsland and distance
* Prerequisites: GSC1401 and GSC1402 or equivalents

Objectives On successful completion of this subject students will have examined a selection of literature from the Renaissance to the end of the eighteenth century so that they will be able to examine the literary depiction of urban experience as a central theme; identify the theme of discovery both within and beyond the national borders, with particular emphasis upon the subject of the new world; make comparisons between depictions of urban and country life; and establish the significance of genre in relation to literary themes and cultural contexts.

Synopsis The works prescribed for study range from two plays by Shakespeare to a selection of Blake's poetry. There are three plays, three works of prose fiction and two sections of poetry. A selection of verse from the early seventeenth to the late eighteenth centuries will be provided for study. The texts will encourage analysis of the theme of urban experience, the nature of country life and the extent of movement to the city and the world of new discoveries, mainly in the northern hemisphere, all in the period from the late sixteenth to the late eighteenth centuries.

Assessment Essay (3000 words): 40%
* Examination (3 hours): 60%

Prescribed texts

Defoe D Moll Flanders ed. D Blewett, Penguin, 1989
Gay J The beggar's opera ed. B Loughrey and T O Treadwell, Penguin, 1986
Johnson S Rasselas ed. J P Hardy, OUP, 1990
Leonard J (ed.) Seven centuries of poetry in English OUP, 1991
Shakespeare W Measure for Measure ed. N W Bawcutt, OUP, 1991
Shakespeare W The Tempest ed. S Orgel, OUP, 1991
Smollett T The expedition of Humphry Clinker ed. A Ross, Penguin, 1985