Studying at York
Renaissance poetry: identity, materiality, voice - ENG00100H
- Department: English and Related Literature
- Module co-ordinator: Information currently unavailable
- Credit value: 20 credits
- Credit level: H
- Academic year of delivery: 2022-23
- See module specification for other years: 2021-22
Module summary
Who speaks in Renaissance poetry? In this module we will explore a range of English Renaissance lyrics to investigate the period’s interest in questions of identity, originality, and voice. From love sonnets in the Petrarchan tradition, to the remarkable psalm translations by Mary Sidney Herbert, to the fashion for poems praising Blackness, the Renaissance lyric seems to take on and slough off identities at will.
If these poems appear at first to offer a kind of intimacy, on further reading they reveal their generation from a complex network of intellectual and material contexts. Ideas of originality in the Renaissance were very different to our own. Humanist ideas of invention emphasised making that involved a complex engagement with the products of the past, rather than virtuoso creation out of nothing. At the same time, practices of collecting and commonplacing meant that poems were often unstable texts, altered from reader to reader, further complicating notions of an ‘authentic’ poetic voice.
In this module we will ask who speaks in the Renaissance lyric—and who is spoken to. We will examine poetry miscellanies in manuscript and print to investigate the textual lives of these lyrics. We will investigate the poems using the critical lenses of feminist and critical race theory to explore their resonances in the early modern period and in the present. We will also read them alongside recent work on the contemporary lyric that calls into question the assumptions of authenticity and otherness that the form seems to invite.
We will employ a range of strategies—reading, speaking, listening, compiling, creative rewriting—to explore what it means to read the Renaissance lyric now. You will be encouraged to put theories and other literary texts from elsewhere in your degree in conversation with the texts we study in this module.
Module will run
| Occurrence | Teaching period |
|---|---|
| A | Spring Term 2022-23 |
Module aims
The aim of this module is to develop your knowledge and understanding of the subject positions of Renaissance poetry, and to contextualise these using recent theories of the lyric. Each week, our one-hour session will explore contexts and critical stances from the Renaissance and the present. In the two-hour seminar, we will focus on close and critical textual analysis of poetry from early modern England. Above all, this module aims to foster and exercise the communal, generative spirit of shared close reading.
Module learning outcomes
On successful completion of the module, you should be able to:
- Demonstrate an advanced understanding of and engagement with the forms, contexts, and materialities of Renaissance lyric poetry
- Demonstrate an advanced engagement with Renaissance material texts, in manuscript and print
- Evaluate key critical debates about theories of voice and lyric
- Produce independent arguments and ideas which demonstrate an advanced proficiency in critical thinking, research, and writing skills
Indicative assessment
| Task | Length | % of module mark |
|---|---|---|
| Essay/coursework Essay (3000 words) |
N/A | 100 |
Special assessment rules
None
Additional assessment information
- You will be given the opportunity to submit a 1000 word formative essay for the module, which can feed into the 3000 word summative essay submitted at the end of the module.
- You will submit your essay to a Google Folder. It will be annotated and returned to you by your tutor within two weeks. Feedback on the essay will be uploaded to eVision.
- Your summative essay is submitted via the VLE by 12noon on Monday of week 1 of the following term. Feedback on your summative essay will be uploaded to eVision to meet the University’s marking deadlines
Indicative reassessment
| Task | Length | % of module mark |
|---|---|---|
| Essay/coursework Essay (3000 words) |
N/A | 100 |
Module feedback
- You will receive feedback on all assessed work within the University deadline, and will often receive it more quickly. The purpose of feedback is to inform your future work; it is designed to help you to improve your work, and the Department also offers you help in learning from your feedback. If you do not understand your feedback or want to talk about your ideas further you can discuss it with your tutor or your supervisor, during their Open Office Hours
- For more information about the feedback you will receive for your work, see the department's Guide to Assessment
Indicative reading
Key texts may include:
- Mary Sidney Herbert and Philip Sidney, The Sidney Psalter
- William Shakespeare, Sonnets, The Rape of Lucrece
- Amelia Lanyer, Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum
- Christopher Marlowe, poems
- Mary Wroth, Pamphilia to Amphilanthus
- Poems on Blackness, collected by Kim F. Hall
- Renaissance translations of Petrarch
- Early modern poetry miscellanies, in manuscript and print