MODULE SPECIFICATION

Code: UPGPPH-30-2 Title: Forms of Reading/Reading Forms Version: 2

Level: 2 UWE credit rating: 30 ECTS credit rating: 15

Module type: Standard

Owning Faculty: Social Sciences and Humanities Field: English

Faculty Committee approval: QSC Date: 16 June 2010

Approved for Delivery by:

Valid from: September 2010 Discontinued from:

Contributes towards: Awards up to BA

Pre-requisites: UPGPDC-60-1 (Approaches to Literature and Criticism); or either of UPGPPG-30-1 or

UPGPPF-30-1

Co-requisites: None

Entry requirements: None

Excluded combinations: None

Learning outcomes:

By the end of the module students should normally be able to demonstrate:

1. a broad knowledge of a range of concepts and theories relevant to the critical reading of English literature and literature in English (all elements of Components A and B)

2. an understanding of the shifting demands involved in the close reading of drama texts, poetry, and prose fiction (all elements of Components A and B)

3. an ability to read the complexities of literary texts and reflect on the formal, generic, rhetorical, and linguistic factors in play (all elements of Components A and B)

4. a knowledge of linguistic and grammatical models relevant to the production and consumption of literary texts (all elements of Components A and B)

5. a critical sense of the various ways in which reading and criticism inform the writing and production of texts (all elements of Components A and B)

6. a critical awareness of the impact of shifting senses of creative writing on the production and consumption of literary texts (all elements of Components A and B)

7. a sophisticated understanding of some of the key reading strategies that have been adopted in relation to three key texts (Hamlet, Paradise Lost, and Middlemarch) (all elements of Components A and B)

8. by written and oral means (both analytically and as creative writing) the complex interplay between form and meaning (all elements of Components A and B)

Syllabus outline:

This module consolidates and extends work on the theory and practice of reading different genres introduced at level 1 and prepares the way for level 3. Among the questions addressed are: Isn’t reading analytically (to paraphrase Wordsworth) a process by which we murder to dissect? To what extent and how do we read different genres differently? What is the difference between “form” and “content” (or as Seymour Chatman has it, between “discourse” and “story”) and what is the impact of that difference on our reading? Isn’t one interpretation just as good as another? Why should we bother with testing and contesting what literary critics have to say about texts? What kinds of relationships are there between text and context? Don’t reading, analysis, interpretation, criticism, and evaluating amount to much the same thing? What prevents us, if anything does, from crow-barring into texts any amount of biography, history, politics, ideas, and the like? The module consists of twenty-four interlocking lectures on three texts selected partly because of their monumental position in our global culture: Hamlet, Paradise Lost, and Middlemarch. Against the frustrations and delights of moving quickly over a wide range of texts in “Approaches to Literature and Criticism,” this module offers the opportunity to read more deliberately. As the module proceeds you will be on the road to becoming sharper and more knowing and confident readers: ultimately this module will empower you to understand your own reading practice and to feel confident about knowing what it is you do as an English student and why that matters to you. You will also have some sense of why the American psychologist and philosopher William James (1842-1910) should have stayed around for this module: reading literature, he lamented, “is as hard to me as trying to hit a target by hurling feathers at it.  I need resistance to celebrate!”

Teaching and learning methods:

The module will be delivered through a weekly programme of lectures and seminars.

Reading Strategy

Students will be required to purchase Hamlet, Paradise Lost, and Middlemarch .These texts will furnish all the primary reading for the module. Detailed advice on recommended secondary reading will be provided in a module handbook, which will also list the best websites for accessing information and resources. Links to these websites will also be provided on Blackboard. Students will be constantly reminded that the Library’s stock of relevant material is valuably supplemented by thousands of full-text articles downloadable from databases such as LION, JSTOR, and Project Muse, and specialist online journals.

Indicative Reading List:

The following list is offered to provide validation panels/accrediting bodies with an indication of the type and level of information students may be expected to consult. As such, its currency may wane during the life span of the module specification. However, as indicated above, CURRENT advice on readings will be available via other more frequently updated mechanisms.

Primary

Shakespeare, William. Hamlet: The Texts of 1603 and 1623. The Arden Shakespeare (third series). Eds. Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor. London: Arden Shakespeare, 2005. Milton, John. Paradise Lost. Ed. Alastair Fowler. Longman Annotated English Poets. 2nd ed. Harlow: Longman,

Eliot, George. Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life. Harmondsworth, Ed. Rosemary Ashton. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2003.

Secondary

Booth. Wayne C. The Rhetoric of Fiction. Rev. ed. Chicago: Chicago UP, 1983

Cohn, Dorritt. Narrative Modes for Representing Consciousness in Fiction. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1978

Hunt, Marvin W. Looking for Hamlet. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008

Bloom, Harold. The Anxiety of Influence: The Theory of Poetry. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1997

Assessment

Weighting between components A and B (standard modules only) A: 40% B: 60%

ATTEMPT 1

First Assessment Opportunity (Sit)

Component A

Description of each element Element weighting

1 Seen Examination (2 hours) FINAL 40%

Component B

Description of each element Element weighting

Essay (close-reading based exercise, 2000 words) )best of 2 marks 30%

Essay (choice of creative piece or reading review, 2000 words) ) to count 30%

Essay (2000 words)

Second Assessment Opportunity (Resit) (further attendance at taught classes is not required)

Component A

Description of each element Element weighting

1 Seen Examination (2 hours) 40%

Component B

Description of each element Element weighting

1 Essay (2,000 words) 30%

2 Essay (2,000 words) 30%

EXCEPTIONAL SECOND ATTEMPT (Retake): Attendance at taught classes is required.

Specification confirmed by …………………………………………………Date ……………………………

(Associate Dean/Programme Director)

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