| Unit name | Paradise Lost: Inception and Reception |
|---|---|
| Unit code | ENGL29032 |
| 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 |
| Units you must take before you take this one (pre-requisite units) |
None |
| Units you must take alongside this one (co-requisite units) |
None |
| Units you may not take alongside this one |
None |
| School/department | Department of English |
| Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
Why is this unit important?
As a specialist subject option, this unit reflects the research expertise and enthusiasms of the convenor, and offers students the chance to work directly with a member of staff who has strong connections to the subject field. You will have the opportunity to engage in greater depth with a specialised theme or topic, pursue advanced discussions, and develop your own arguments and contributions. Your specialist subject may build directly on work introduced at an earlier stage of study, or branch out in a different direction. It may reflect some of your longstanding interests, or expose you to new and unexpected ideas. In all cases, specialist subject options encourage students to think reflectively, creatively, and with increased independence about their identities and interests as scholars.
How does this unit fit into your programme of study?
Specialist subject options are offered in the second and final years of the English programmes. It is standard practice for single honours students to take two specialist options in each of those years (one per TB), and for joint honours students to take one. Specialist subject options are available to students on Liberal Arts programmes, and may in some cases also be available to taught postgraduates (MA English, MA Medieval Studies, MA Black Humanities). The portfolio of units available will change from year to year based on staff availability, but it will consistently represent a full range of research strengths across the English department, as well as demonstrating our commitment to supporting choice and providing increased optionality as students progress through their programme.
An overview of content:
Where does evil come from? It’s a big, dangerous, many-tentacled question, which Paradise Lost follows into issues of history, psychology, social justice, and our relationships with nature. This unit reads Milton’s genre-breaking epic closely and in context, asking how its retelling of biblical history and sublime poetic style relate to Milton’s involvement in debates about the execution of the king, censorship, and marriage reform. We will look at Milton’s unconventional depictions of Adam, Eve and Eden, his seductive anti-hero Satan, and compare Lucy Hutchinson’s contemporary creative re-writing of Genesis: Order and Disorder. We’ll ask why some critics take Satan’s side, while others call him ‘English literature’s first terrorist’. The unit looks too at how Milton’s imagination engages changing attitudes to the environment and empire, how his blindness shaped the brilliant visual qualities of his poem, and how Milton has spoken to cultural debates and progressive politics in the centuries after his death, from Blake and the Romantics to Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials.
We will read Paradise Lost in weekly chunks, which will give us the opportunity to unpick how particular episodes relate to some of the key cultural crises of Milton’s age. We’ll be helped in this by reading some short extracts from pamphlets by Milton and other radical writers of the civil war period, and exploring their relevance to the text. Later seminars will reflect on the poem as a whole, in the light of some more recent critical and creative responses to it. This unit will give you time to develop a multifaceted interpretation of a text over the whole term, and will also help you to develop your own arguments in dialogue with different critics.
Students will be given the opportunity to submit a draft or outline of your final, summative essay, and receive formative feedback.
How will you be different:
On completion of the unit students will have had the opportunity to engage with one of the most ambitious and influential poems in English Literature, gain an increased understanding of how to analyse literary form and genre, and think about their relationships with history. You will also have built on your understanding of early modern literature and history as developed in ENGL10043 Literature 1550-1740. This unit provides an excellent foundation for early modern, romantic and some thematic special units in Year 3, especially ENGL39027 Shakespearean Tragedy and ENGL30069 Hero or Traitor? Outlaws in Literature. The experience of building up an interpretation of a literary text over a longer timeframe in dialogue with a text’s critical history will be excellent preparation for final-year dissertation projects.
Intended Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of this unit students will be able to:
Teaching will involve asynchronous and synchronous elements, including group discussion, research and writing activities, and peer dialogue. Students are expected to engage with the reading and participate fully with the weekly tasks and topics. Learning will be further supported through the opportunity for individual consultation
Tasks which help you learn and prepare you for summative tasks (formative):
Students will be given the opportunity to submit a draft or outline of your final, summative essay, and receive formative feedback (0%, Not required for credit)
Tasks which count towards your unit mark (summative):
Essay, 3000 words (100%) [ILOs 1-4]
When assessment does not go to plan
When required by the Board of Examiners, you will normally complete reassessments in the same formats as those outlined above. However, the Board reserves the right to modify the format or number of reassessments required. Details of reassessments are confirmed by the School/Centre shortly after the notification of your results at the end of the year.
If this unit has a Resource List, you will normally find a link to it in the Blackboard area for the unit. Sometimes there will be a separate link for each weekly topic.
If you are unable to access a list through Blackboard, you can also find it via the Resource Lists homepage. Search for the list by the unit name or code (e.g. ENGL29032).
How much time the unit requires
Each credit equates to 10 hours of total student input. For example a 20 credit unit will take you 200 hours
of study to complete. Your total learning time is made up of contact time, directed learning tasks,
independent learning and assessment activity.
See the University Workload statement relating to this unit for more information.
Assessment
The Board of Examiners will consider all cases where students have failed or not completed the assessments required for credit.
The Board considers each student's outcomes across all the units which contribute to each year's programme of study. For appropriate assessments, if you have self-certificated your absence, you will normally be required to complete it the next time it runs (for assessments at the end of TB1 and TB2 this is usually in the next re-assessment period).
The Board of Examiners will take into account any exceptional circumstances and operates
within the Regulations and Code of Practice for Taught Programmes.
