EN4317 Diversifying Old English Literature

Further information on which modules are specific to your programme.

Module description

Calls to 'decolonise the curriculum' (terminology which has itself been critiqued by scholars of indigeneity, as will be discussed) present particular problems when we are dealing with pre-modern European literary cultures. How can we diversify our syllabus when we often do not know the names of our authors, let alone how they might have described their ethnic identities, or even if they were men or women? This module will address that issue head-on, examining a range of Old English poems and prose works in dual-text Old/Modern English versions alongside a selection of creative responses by writers from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries, as well as texts from postcolonial and feminist literary theory, in order to interrogate how early English literature has sometimes been used, both within and since the medieval period, to buttress ideological assumptions that are imperialist and patriarchal, and what we can do to reframe the way we teach and study Old English in response.

Intended learning outcomes

• Awareness of the ways in which Old English literature has had, and continues to have, ideological meanings and uses.
• Awareness of recent and contemporary theoretical approaches and political debates around ethnicity and gender that inform and impact the way we read Old English literature.
• Knowledge and practice-based understanding of how modern authors from diverse backgrounds make use of Old English literature in their own creative work.
• Familiarity with a variety of Old English texts, both poetic and prose, in a range of genres, both canonical and non-canonical.
• Ability to engage in close critical and comparative analysis of literary texts from two non-contiguous historical periods.
• Ability to develop and express arguments (both in writing and orally, in seminar discussion) based on textual evidence.