Course Catalogue

View Specification Document | Reading List

Early modern women writers have often been overlooked, or examined independently of their male counterparts as having different, more domestic concerns. They are rarely compared with major canonical figures such as Milton and Marvell, or viewed as key players in the political upheavals of the time. Yet women were active as prophets and pamphleteers in or around the radical groups of the period - the Diggers, Levellers, Quakers and Ranters - and played a prominent part in both royalist and republican causes, not just in England but in the wider Atlantic Archipelago. This course will follow the active role of women writers through the writings they produced, and the controversies they engaged in, often answering, or prompting, or inspiring male interlocutors. 

10 x 2 hour weekly seminars

Standard entry to Masters at College level.

None

None

The standard assessments for this course are:

■ One essay of 4,000 words - 80%

■ One short piece of writing of 1,000 words or one presentation of 10 minutes - 20%

If required, for instance where a disability prevents a student from undertaking a specific method of assessment, the following alternatives are available:

■ There is no alternative to the essay, but an extension to the deadline can be offered as reasonable adjustment (students should follow the usual process for extensions).

■ A recorded presentation OR one-to-one presentation (if presentation would normally be in class) and Q&A with staff as alternative to the presentation.

Further reasonable adjustments may be provided where necessary. Students are encouraged to consult with the course convenor.

The aim of this course is to:

■ Illustrate the importance of women's writing in seventeenth-century literature, politics and culture.

■ Familiarise students with a range of female authors working in a variety of literary forms.

■ Encourage students to read literary texts of the period in the light of questions of gender, power and representation.

By the end of this course students will be able to:

1. Explain their understanding of the significance of women's writing in seventeenth-century politics, literature and culture.

2. Identify and evaluate the historical, cultural and formal specificity of seventeenth-century women's writing.

3. Engage in further research in any of the issues of gender, power and representation raised by seventeenth-century women's writing. 

4. Demonstrate in written work and presentations their familiarity with wider work in seventeenth-century literature and culture.