Worlding Old English: Literary Culture from Alfred the Great to the Norman Conquest - MST00021M

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Module will run

Occurrence	Teaching period
A	Semester 1 2024-25

Module aims

The module aims to look at the place of Old English literature within the context of a multilingual Britain that was engaged with the full range of the known world. It both examines Old English from the perspective of the global Middle Ages by using the theoretical concept of ‘worlding’ and offers an introduction to the most well-known of Old English texts. Worlding does ‘not merely increase representation of previously ignored or underrepresented cultures, but rather present[s]’ a range of cultures, across time and space, ‘as dynamically related’. Throughout the module, texts from Europe, Asia and North Africa will be part of the discussion.

Module learning outcomes

On successful completion of the module, you should be able to:

1. Demonstrate an advanced understanding of and engagement with key Old English texts from the late 9th to the early 11th century, read in translation, with attention
to the original language.
2. Demonstrate an advanced understanding of and engagement with Old English literature in contexts from the local to the global.
3. Evaluate key debates within the relevant critical fields dealing with the 9th -11th century English literature.
4. Produce independent arguments and ideas which demonstrate an advanced proficiency in critical thinking, research, and writing skills.

Module content

The module is organized in 4 clusters, each with two seminars:

1) King Alfred: The Power of the Written Word;
2) The Exeter Book: Building in Time and Space;
3) Beowulf;
4) Monks and Bishops in an Age of Reform.

Indicative assessment

Task	% of module mark
Essay/coursework	100.0

Special assessment rules

None

Indicative reassessment

Task	% of module mark
Essay/coursework	100.0

Module feedback

Students have the opportunity to submit a formative essay of up to 2,000 words and receive written or oral feedback, as appropriate, from a tutor. For the summative essay (3500-4000 words), students will receive their provisional mark and written feedback in line with the University's turnaround policy. The tutor will then be available during student hours for follow-up guidance if required.

Indicative reading

Primary

Texts will be drawn from the following:
Alfred the Great’s Preface to the Pastoral Care
Beowulf
Ahmad ibn Fadlan’s Mission to the Volga
Zayd al-Sirafi, Accounts of China and India
Exeter Book of Old English Poetry (Widsith, The Wander and The Ruin)
Poetry from Vandal North Africa
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
Old English Orosius
Apollonius of Tyre
Ælfric’s Lives of Saints
Saints Lives from Byzantine World (Greek and Syriac)

Scholarship
Mark Amodio, Anglo-Saxon Literature Handbook (2014).
Atherton, Mark, Kazutomo Karasawa, and Francis Leneghan, eds., Ideas of the World in Early Medieval English Literature (2022).
John Blair’s The Anglo-Saxon Age: A Very Short Introduction (2000).
Linda Georgianna, ‘Coming to Terms with the Norman Conquest: Nationalism and English Literary History’ REAL: Yearbook of Research in English and American Literature 14 (1998), 33-53.
Catherine Holmes and Naomi Standen, ‘Introduction: Towards a Global Middle Ages in The Global Middle Ages, Past and Present 238
(2018), 1-44.
Sharon Kinoshita, ‘Worlding Medieval French’ in French Global: A New Approach to Literary History, edited by Christie McDonald and Susan Rubin Suleiman (2010).
Julia Smith, Europe after Rome: A New Cultural History, 500-1000 (2005).
Van Gerven Oei, Vincent, ‘Finding Old Nubian, or Why We Should Divest from Western Tongues’, Postmedieval 11 (2020) 301-309.