Unit name | Writing the City: London 1550-1740 |
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Unit code | ENGL20069 |
Credit points | 20 |
Level of study | I/5 |
Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12) |
Unit director | Dr. Holberton |
Open unit status | Not open |
Pre-requisites |
None |
Co-requisites |
None |
School/department | Department of English |
Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
This unit looks at how writers imagined and interpreted London as it grew and changed at dizzying speed through the early modern period, and drew to it people from all walks of life. We will ask how writers imagined and interpreted urban geographies, and how those geographies in turn shaped the drama, poetry, and novels that were written there. The unit examines the ways in which literature interacted with the city’s changing economic and material cultures, and how writers represent crime, the urban underworld and the market for illicit sex. It asks how aesthetic values were influenced by new tastes in fashion and luxury goods, and by the city’s new places and forms of exchange. The unit will also examine literature’s role in the construction and negotiation of urban identities and the city’s boundaries, how literature represents the place of men and women in the city, and how the city interacts with the stage and an emerging public sphere of print culture. Throughout the course, we will engage with theoretical discussions concerning the representation of urban space, and harness new resources such as interactive historical maps, which will allow students to investigate London’s historical topographies.
At the end of the unit a successful student will be able to
1 x two-hour seminar weekly.
Isabella Whitney, ‘Wyll and Testament’ (1573)
Ben Jonson, Bartholomew Fair (1614)
John Dryden, Annus Mirabilis (1667)
Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders (1722)
Alexander Pope, The Dunciad (1728)
Lawrence Manley, Literature and Culture in Early Modern London (CUP, 1995)