ENG-20054 - Twentieth-Century British Fiction and Poetry
Coordinator: Rebecca M Bowler Room: 2.037 Tel: +44 1782 7 33017
Lecture Time: See Timetable...
Level: Level 5
Credits: 15
Study Hours: 150
School Office: 01782 733147

Programme/Approved Electives for 2021/22

None

Available as a Free Standing Elective

No

Co-requisites

None

Prerequisites

None

Barred Combinations

None

Description for 2021/22

The twentieth-century witnessed colossal political societal and technological shifts. From the modernism of the early part of the century through wars, revolutions and disillusionment to the postmodernism of the second half of the twentieth-century, literature traced, reflected and critiqued these developments. This module will introduce students to important British writers of the twentieth-century, from the modernists through to contemporary writers. From D.H Lawrence, Dorothy Richardson and Virginia Woolf through to Linton Kwesei Johnson, Jackie Kay and Zadie Smith, the twentieth-century was a period of literary innovation and experiment.

Aims
To study selected fiction and poetry produced in Britain from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present.
To enable students to reflect on the social contexts and political ideologies that have dominated during the period (1900 to the present) and to consider the significance of a variety of literary texts in relation to these.
To provide students with a knowledge of various critical frameworks (cultural and literary) such as feminist theory, postmodernism and postcolonialism, and to develop an ability to work with these as part of an independent critical practice.
To enable students to appreciate and analyse the emergence and significance of different literary styles during the period.
To account for the importance of gender, class, sexual and racial identities in the literature of the period.

Intended Learning Outcomes

1,2
1,2
1,2
1,2
1,2
1,2
1,2

Study hours

lectures (12 hours)
small group classes (12 hours)
seminar preparation and private study (72 hours)
essay writing and preparation (43 hours)
formative exercise preparation and writing (10 hours)
essay feedback (1 hour)

School Rules

Successful completion of at least one level 4 English module (any coded ENG-1xxxx).

Description of Module Assessment

1: Short Paper weighted 30%
Short Paper weighted 30%
1000-word close reading of a short poem Students will be asked to produce a close reading of a poem. They will be offered three poems to choose from.

2: Essay weighted 70%
Essay weighted 70%
2,500 word essay. Students will be asked to choose one from a list of essay questions. The essay questions will be theme based and cover topics studied on the module.