Modernism and the Avant-Garde in Literature and Drama

Code

ENGL4155

School

English

Level

4

Credits

20

Semesters

Autumn UK

Summary

This module will investigate radical strategies of aesthetic presentation and the challenge they offered to prevailing limits of personal, gender and national identity between 1890 and 1960. Through a selection of key literary, dramatic, cultural, and critical texts, the module will examine ways that modernist and avant-garde writings draw their formal, generic and political borders, how they reconfigure ideas of the self, and what the political consequences of that reconfiguration are. The module will also consider the multiple meanings of 'radicalism' in an aesthetic and literary context, relating those meanings to questions of taste, community, and the market. This will be a team-taught module which examines a wide spectrum of literature and drama, including as well the era's cultural criticism and more recent critical and theoretical studies. Some of the texts are difficult; students will be expected to have read material thoroughly before each seminar, and to come prepared to discuss its theoretical, aesthetic and political implications.

Target Students

Only available to on-site postgraduate students in the School of English.

Classes

• One 2-hour seminar each week for 11 weeks

Assessment

• 100% Coursework 1: One 4,000 word essay

Assessed by end of autumn semester

Educational Aims

Learning Outcomes

(a) Knowledge and understanding of

• the social and cultural history of the period 1890-1960 and its relation with Modernist and Avant-Garde literature and drama;
• the relationship between aesthetic innovation and the conventions of genre;
• the institutionalization of criticism during this period and its effect;
• the relation of particular aesthetic techniques to ideas of self, class, gender and nation.

(b) Intellectual skills

• the ability to carry out detailed textual analysis of a range of literary texts in a critical, historical and cultural context;
• the ability to use archival and periodical sources;
• the ability to understand and evaluate current critical thinking;
• the ability to conduct self-directed study.

(c) Professional practical skills

• the ability to conduct independent research which is persuasive and well sourced;
• the ability to discuss and present ideas clearly in group situations;
• the ability to work with databases and periodicals;
• the ability to produce written assignments to a high standard.

(d) Transferable skills

• a developed understanding of a range of research approaches and philosophies;
• skills in multi-layered, open-ended and self-reflexive analysis;
• the ability to apply different research methodologies as required;
• the ability to communicate ideas and findings clearly both in written and oral situations.

Conveners

• Dr Steven Morrison