Please note: Places are limited on this module to 20.
Please note: Places are limited on this module to 20.
DESCRIPTION
The stories associated with King Arthur are among the most enduring in western culture. From the medieval Welsh annals to BBC children's programming, Arthurian texts have been rewritten for, and appropriated by, every generation. This mdule proposes to follow the changing text in various forms (poetry, prose and film) from the establishment of the corpus in the middle ages (weeks 1 and 2), to the use of the legend in the project of nation building, or rebuilding, at various, fraught points of English history (weeks 3 to 6). It is also intended to examine Arthurian literature's emergence in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries as a matter for children's books and film (weeks 7 to 9), and to look at the imaginative pull exertetd by the grail legend (week 10) on T.S. Eliot and modernist writing. The module is intended to be interdisciplinary: Arthurian film and television are central to our discussions, and students can choose to present their coursework as either a critical essay or a creative response to Arthurian texts.
AIMS
To introduce students to an influential and coherent group of texts not currently offered for study at Essex.
To emphasise the interdisciplinary remit of the Department by taking approaches from literary, film, and creative studies, and applying them to a single body of texts.
LEARNING OUTCOMES
The student will be familiar with a group of texts significant for their literary merit.
By studying the changing treatment of the same myth over a period of many centuries, the student will be able to evaluate the effect of political and socio-historical circumstances on the creation of literary texts.
Skills in presentation and analysis will be developed in the seminars on this module.
Please note: Places are limited on this module to 20.
DESCRIPTION
The stories associated with King Arthur are among the most enduring in western culture. From the medieval Welsh annals to BBC children's programming, Arthurian texts have been rewritten for, and appropriated by, every generation. This mdule proposes to follow the changing text in various forms (poetry, prose and film) from the establishment of the corpus in the middle ages (weeks 1 and 2), to the use of the legend in the project of nation building, or rebuilding, at various, fraught points of English history (weeks 3 to 6). It is also intended to examine Arthurian literature's emergence in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries as a matter for children's books and film (weeks 7 to 9), and to look at the imaginative pull exertetd by the grail legend (week 10) on T.S. Eliot and modernist writing. The module is intended to be interdisciplinary: Arthurian film and television are central to our discussions, and students can choose to present their coursework as either a critical essay or a creative response to Arthurian texts.
AIMS
To introduce students to an influential and coherent group of texts not currently offered for study at Essex.
To emphasise the interdisciplinary remit of the Department by taking approaches from literary, film, and creative studies, and applying them to a single body of texts.
LEARNING OUTCOMES
The student will be familiar with a group of texts significant for their literary merit.
By studying the changing treatment of the same myth over a period of many centuries, the student will be able to evaluate the effect of political and socio-historical circumstances on the creation of literary texts.
Skills in presentation and analysis will be developed in the seminars on this module.