EN3ETW: Elizabethan Travel Writing

Module Provider:

English

Number of credits:

20 [10 ECTS credits]

Level:

H (Honours)

Terms in which taught:

Spring

Module Convenor:

Dr E Heale

Pre-requisites:

English Part 1

Co-requisites:

Modules excluded:

Module version for:

2007/8

Aims:
This module aims to provide students with a knowledge of some of the wealth of travel writing in English in the sixteenth century, and with an appreciation of some of the issues posed by English perceptions of foreign lands and peoples in this period. Students will acquire the ability to analyse a selection of texts in terms of their representations of Englishness and foreign travel, and to understand their relation to the larger enterprise of English overseas expansion.

Assessable learning outcomes:
By the end of the module students will be expected to
• Demonstrate knowledge of a selection of travel writing from the period
• Analyse and discuss the representational strategies of a selection of travel texts
• Identify some of the ways in which travel texts of the period relate to the contemporary enterprise of overseas expansion
• Engage critically with ideas presented in seminars and secondary materials
• Organize and articulate a coherent critical argument in writing.

Additional outcomes:
Each module is designed to encourage you to develop skills of oral communication and effective participation in group work. Additionally, you will be encouraged to enhance your IT competence through the use of relevant web resources and library databases, and through the word-processing of assessed coursework.

Outline content:
Students will be introduced to some of the extraordinarily rich travel writing from this period. Texts will be largely taken from the Penguin selection from Hakluyt augmented by additional photocopied prose and poetry. Attention will particularly focus on such topics as the role writing played in promoting and justifying particular enterprises; the construction of Englishness and the idea of the foreign in the texts studied; the role of gender in such constructions; the significance of rivalry with Spain and Portugal in overseas expansion, and the importance of style, from epic to ‘log-book’ prose, in shaping written accounts and the persona of the traveller.

Brief description of teaching and learning methods:
Students will receive preliminary information about the modules they will be taking in the preceding term. There will be 9 meetings of two hours per week. The exact method of teaching will vary from seminar to seminar, but most modules are taught largely through two hour seminars involving group discussion. Some modules may include occasional lectures. You may be asked to give brief seminar papers or oral reports. You are entitled to half an hour of tutorial feedback on your non assessed essay.

Contact hours:

Assessment:
Coursework
Students write one one non-assessed piece of coursework of 1,500 words, and submit one or two assessed pieces of coursework up to a maximum of 2,500 words.

Penalties for late submission
Ten marks (out of 100 on the normal University scale) will be deducted from a piece of work submitted up to one calendar week after the original deadline or any formally agreed extension of that deadline. Once this period has elapsed a mark of zero will be recorded.

Examinations
There will be a two-hour examination paper.

Each component will account for 50% of the mark of the module.

Requirement for a pass: an average of 40%.

Reassessment arrangements
Re-examination in September. Coursework will be carried forward if it bears a confirmed mark of 40% or more. Otherwise it must be resubmitted by 1 September.