Course Resources Archive

This module will appeal to students with an interest in exploring modern and contemporary British writing.  We will examine a range of classic and current British texts from the period 1900 to the present day, comprising a variety of literary forms, such as fiction, poetry, prose and the short story.

Taking its starting-point in the study of modernist and 1930s texts written in the first half of the twentieth century by British and Irish authors and poets, the module provides students with the opportunity to assess the experimentalism of writers attempting to comprehend and articulate the experience of twentieth-century modernity. Building on its assessment of these developments, the module proceeds to explore late 20 th Century and 21 st Century British literary production, and to develop and expand students’ critical and aesthetic vocabulary.    Students engage with the nouveau roman and metafiction, reflections on multicultural experience, gender and sexuality, thought-provoking postmodernist experimentation with genre, and contemporary hybrid forms, to name but a few.  Writers studied include Joyce, Eliot, Sinclair, Mansfield, Lawrence, Orwell, Greene, Sillitoe, Spark, Kureishi, Levy, Kay, Waters, Mitchell.

A student passing this module should be able to:

1.demonstrate an in-depth knowledge and sophisticated understanding of major post-1900 British literary developments in British, and their social and cultural contexts;

2.articulate an advanced knowledge and understanding of British literature, and related concepts and theories, through close reading and textual analysis, and use appropriate critical vocabulary;

3.employ sophisticated comparative and analytical skills, show confidence and dexterity in analysing complex forms of literary language and rhetoric, and evaluate these appropriately and critically;

4.produce and present confident, sustained, and sophisticated discussions, both in written and oral formats, and communicate ideas effectively and with sensitivity; 

5.plan and organise their own learning experience, and implement research, and use appropriate scholarly resources, including information technology.

The Library Catalogue contains full details of the current reading list for this module. Further details may also be found in the Module Guide.