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English Literature from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment

Code: 100249
Credits: 6
2026/2027
Degree programme Type Course
English and Catalan Studies OP 3
English and Catalan Studies OP 4
English and Spanish Studies OP 3
English and Spanish Studies OP 4
English and French Studies OP 4
English and Classics Studies OP 3
English and Classics Studies OP 4

Contact lecturer

Name :
Jordi Coral Escola
Email :
jordi.coral@uab.cat

Group languages

You can consult this information at the end of the document.

Prerequisites

‘Orígens de la Literatura Anglesa’ (100245)  

‘Història i Cultura de les Illes Britàniques’ (100217)

The course requires an initial level of English between C1 (Advanced) and C2 (Proficiency) (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment). Students with C1 can understand a wide range of demanding, longer texts, and recognise implicit meaning; they can express themselves fluently and spontaneously without much obvious searching for expressions; they can use language flexibly and effectively for social, academic and professional purposes; they can produce clear, well-structured, detailed text on complex subjects, showing controlled use of organisational patterns, connectors and cohesive devices. With C2 students can understand almost everything they read or hear without effort; they can summarise information from different oral and written sources, reconstruct facts and arguments and present them in a coherent way; they can express themselves spontaneously, with fluency and precision, distinguishing subtle nuances of meaning even in the most complex situations.

Objectives

 

  • This course provides an introduction to the principal authors of early modern English literature (16c. to 18c.) through the critical reading of some of the most representative poetic, dramatic and narrative texts.
  • This subject is indispensable to complete the undergraduate literary curriculum. 
  • The successful completion of this course will allow students to improve their academic, critical and linguistic skills by means of the following exercises: textual commentary, class presentations, use of library resources, and debates and class discussion. 

Learning outcomes

  1. Demonstrate a solid knowledge of subjects related to the study of Literature and Culture in general.
  2. Make appropriate critical evaluations supported by an understanding of relevant information on topics related to Literature and Culture.
  3. Express oneself effectively by applying argumentative and textual procedures in formal and scientific texts, in the language studied.
  4. In an effective manner, organise the autonomous component to learning.
  5. Analyse sex/gender inequalities and gender bias in English literature.
  6. Apply the acquired work planning methodologies to individual and group professional tasks.
  7. Apply the acquired work planning methodologies to individual and group professional tasks.
  8. Locate and organise relevant English-language information available on the internet, databases and libraries, and apply this to work and/or research environments.
  9. Incorporate ideas and concepts from published sources into work, citing and referencing appropriately.
  10. Integrate knowledge and information from academic sources consulted for written work, citing, referencing and paraphrasing correctly.
  11. Use the appropriate terminology in the construction of an academic text and in the transmission of their knowledge.
  12. Applying the acquired scientific and work planning methodologies to the research in English.
  13. Recognise the principles of the discipline of study and its main sources.
  14. Critically interpret literary works taking into account their historical and social context.
  15. Use appropriate terminology in the construction of an academic text.
  16. Critically interpret bibliography.
  17. Apply the work-organisation methodologies acquired to individual and group-based professional tasks.
  18. Plan work effectively, individually or in groups, in order to fulfil the planned objectives.
  19. Locate specialised and academic information and select this according to its relevance.
  20. Distinguish the sex/gender factor in the configuration of the literary canon.
  21. Issue rating pertinent criticism supported in understanding the relevant information on issues related to the literature and culture.
  22. Organise the autonomous component to the learning process in an effective manner.
  23. Produce written and spoken academic texts at a higher-proficient-user level (C2) on the concepts and skills relevant to the study of English literary texts and contexts.
  24. Understand and differentiate adequately between the concepts of literature and culture in English, as well as their mutual relations and interactions.
  25. Develop coherent discourses on literature and culture in English and apply these discourses to the analysis of social and academic reality.
  26. Identifying the main and secondary ideas and expressing them with linguistic correctness.
  27. Develop effective written work and oral presentations and adapted to the appropriate register.
  28. Strengthen the capacity of reading, interpretation and critical analysis of literary texts and language.
  29. Maintain an attitude of respect for the opinions, values, behaviors and practices of others.
  30. Produce normatively correct written and oral texts.
  31. Write text commentaries from a critical standpoint.
  32. Plan, organise and carry out work in a team.
  33. Commenting on literary texts, applying the acquired tools and taking into account the historical and sociocultural context.
  34. Critically interpreting literary works taking into account the relationships between the different areas of literature and its relationships with human, artistic and social areas.
  35. Discern the sex/gender factor in the configuration of the literary canon.
  36. Produce work in accordance with academic ethics.

Contents

Syllabus


Unit 1: The works of William Shakespeare: a) poetry: "The Sonnets" (selected poems) and the Petrarchan tradition; b) drama: "The Merchant of Venice" and the early modern stage.

Unit 2: Metaphysical poetry: selected poems of John Donne and Andrew Marvell.

Unit 3: John Milton: "Paradise Lost" (a selection).

Unit 4: The Rise of the Novel: Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe".

Learning activities and methodology

Title Hours ECTS Learning outcomes
Reading 15 0.6
Practice classes: reading and debates 20 0.8
Theory classes 30 1.2
Study 35 1.4
Assignments 25 1

The teaching methodology will be based on:

  • Directed activities (30%, 1.8 cr)
  • Supervised activities (15%, 0.9 cr)
  • Autonomous activities  (50%, 3 cr)
  • Assessment activities (5%, 0.3 cr)
Annotation: within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.

Assessment

Continuous assessment activities

Title Weight Hours ECTS Learning outcomes
In-class essay writing 45% 2.5 0.1 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 30, 31, 34, 35, 36
Attendance and class participation 10% 20 0.8 2, 4, 9, 11, 17, 18, 19, 20, 25, 28, 29, 32, 34
Exam 45% 2.5 0.1 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14, 15, 26, 30, 33, 34, 35

Assessment for this course is based on the following criteria:

  • Exam (45%)
  • In-class essay writing (45%)
  • Attendance and participation in class (10%)

PLEASE NOTE:

a) Continuous assessment. All exercises are compulsory and submission of 30% or more of these exercises automatically excludes the possibility of obtaining “No avaluable” as a final grade.

b) The student’s command of English will be taken into account when marking all exercises and for the final mark. It will count as 25% of this mark for all the exercises.

c) Students have a right to review their exercises with the teacher in a personal tutorial, on the set dates, never later than 2 weeks after the marks have been made available. The student loses this right if s/he fails to collect the exercise/exam within the period announced by the teacher, except for justifiable reasons of a medical kind.

d) On carrying out each assessment activity, lecturers will inform students (on Moodle) of the procedures to be followed for reviewing all grades awarded, and the date on which such a review will take place.

e) Grades from each assessment activity will be returned within a maximum of three weeks.

f) Final grades of 4.9 will round up to 5 and will not trigger re-assessment.


Item-by-Item Reassessment

a) Students who fail both the exam and the essay are not eligible for re-assessment

b) Students who have passed both the exam and the essay cannot opt for re-assessment in order to upgrade their average mark.

c) The final average grade will be communicated to students at least 72 hours before re-assessment day.

d) The exam and the in-class essay are re-assessable (90% of the final grade in total).

e) To access re-assessment, a student needs to have been evaluated in activities that together account for at least two-thirds of the total grade.


Single assessment:

The single assessment option will consist of the three following activities:

A written exam whose contents correspond to that which the rest of the group will take. The single-assessment exam will take place on the same day and time as that of the rest of the class (45%).

An essay corresponding to that which the rest of the group will write in class. The essay will be submitted on the same day as that of the rest of the class (45%).

Class attendance and participation (10%).

All students, whether they have opted for continuous assesment or not, will re-evaluate in the same way (indicated above), provided they have completed all scheduled activities.

Plagiarism and other irregularities

In the event of a student committing any irregularity that may lead to a significant variation in the grade awarded to an assessment activity, the student will be given a zero for this activity, regardless of any disciplinary process that may take place. In the event of several irregularities in assessment activities of the same subject, the student will be given a zero as the final grade for this subject.

Irregularities refer, for instance, to copying in an exam, copying from sources without indiacting authorship, or a misuse of AI such as presenting work as original that has been generated by an AI tool or programme. These evaluation activities will not be re-assessed. Activities affected by any irregularitywill be excluded from re-assessment.

\"Not Assessed\" Final Grade

Students will obtain a “Not assessed/Not submitted” course grade provided that they have neither taken the exam nor submitted any essay.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

This subject entirely prohibits the use of AI technologies in all of its activities. Any submitted work that contains content generated using AI will be considered academic dishonesty; the corresponding grade will be awarded a zero, without the possibility of reassessment. In cases of greater infringement, more serious action may be taken.

Examination Dates and Submission Deadlines

Requests to change examination dates or submission deadlines for personal reasons will not be granted unless they are illness-related and a doctor's certificate is provided; Erasmus and exchange students who cannot take an exam or hand in an essay for justifiable reasons will need to submit to their teacher(s) written proof of the latter issued by their home university.








Bibliography

BIBLIOGRAPHY (A more detailed bibliography will be provided in class)

UNIT 1

Set reading:

  • William Shakespeare’s \"Sonnets\" (1609)
  • \"The Merchant of Venice\" (ed. Jay L. Halio, Oxford Shakespeare, OUP, 1993).

Optional reading:

  • Tempest (1610-11)
  • Romeo and Juliet (1596)
  • Hamlet (1601)

UNIT 2

Set readings:

  • Metaphysical poetry: John Donne, George Herbert, Andrew Marvell.
  • Henry Vaughan, Selected poetry (1650s)
  • Francis Bacon, \"Essays\" (1597)

UNIT 3

Set readings:

  • \"Paradise Lost\" by John Milton (1645)

Optional readings:

  • \"Paradise Regained\", John Milton
  • \"Samson Agonistes\", John Milton

UNIT 4

Set reading:

  • \"Gulliver's Travels\" (1726) de Jonathan Swift


Optional readings:

  • \"Robinson Crusoe\", 1719, Daniel Defoe.
  • Political Writings, 1720, Mary Astell.
  • \"Love Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister\" (1684), Aphra Behn.

Websites:

  • The Shakespeare Resource Centre: http://www.bardweb.net/
  • English Literature on the Web: http://www.lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~matsuoka/EngLit.html
  • The Norton Online: http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/

Please note:

For each unit at least one academic article will be read (see Campus Virtual).


Further Reading:

Bate, Jonathan. "English Literature: A Very Short Introduction" (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).

Elledge, Scott (ed.). "Paradise Lost: An Authoritative Texts, Backgrounds, and Sources" (New York: Norton, 1993).

Kermode, Frank. "The Age of Shakespeare" (London: Orion, 2004).

Levi, Anthony. "Renaissance and Reformation: Intellectual Genesis" (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002).

MacCulloch, Diarmaid. "Reformation: Europe’s House Divided" (London: Penguin Books, 2003).

Norbrook, David (ed.) The Penguin Book of Renaissance Verse (London: Penguin, 2005).

Patterson, Annabel. "John Milton" (London: Longman, 1991).

Sanders, Julie. "The Cambridge Introduction to Early Modern Drama" (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014).

Smith, Emma. "This is Shakespeare" (London: Random House, 2020).

Van Doren, Mark. "Shakespeare" (New York: New York Review of Books, 2005).

Vendler, Helen. "The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets" (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999).

Zwicker, Steven N. "The Cambridge Companion to English Literature 1650:1740" (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).


Software

Not applicable

Course groups and languages

The information provided is provisional until November 30. After this date, you will be able to consult the language of each group through this link. To access the information, you will need to enter the course CODE