Course Details in 2025/26 Session

Module Title	LI Aspects of Modernism
School	Eng, Drama, & Creative Studies
Department	English Literature
Module Code	09 32447
Module Lead	Dr Chris Mourant
Level	Intermediate Level
Credits	20
Semester	Semester 2
Pre-requisites
Co-requisites
Restrictions	None
Contact Hours	Lecture-10 hours Seminar-20 hours Guided independent study-170 hours Total: 200 hours
Exclusions
Description	How did writers respond to the experience of modernity and modernisation? And what do we mean by the term 'modernism'? This module aims to familiarise students with the aesthetic debates and cultural scene of Anglo-American literary modernism. We will read a range of modernist texts written from the turn of the twentieth century to just after the Second World War. Following shifts in accepted ideas about gender, nation, religion and psyche, writers in the early twentieth century turned against bourgeois Victorian culture and its paradigmatic ways of seeing and representing the world, both through a focus on ‘modern’ life and experiments in narrative style and poetic form. Over the course of this module, we will think about the various ways in which writers in this period responded to social change and challenged literary conventions to 'make it new'. Texts on the module might include novels such as Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway, short stories by Katherine Mansfield, and poems by T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and H.D.
Learning Outcomes	By the end of the module students should be able to: Demonstrate skills in close reading modernist texts, and ability to comment on the characteristic literary styles, genres and discourses employed; Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of modernist texts within their social and historical contexts; Situate modernist literature alongside developments in other artistic forms at the same time, such as painting, sculpture and music. Identify and evaluate appropriate critical approaches to modernist texts.
Assessment	32447-01 : 1,500 word essay : Coursework (35%) 32447-02 : 2 hour examination : Exam (Centrally Timetabled) - Written Seen (65%)
Assessment Methods & Exceptions	Assessment Portfolio of close readings – 1500 words (40%) Essay – 2000 words (60%) Reassessment Failed component only Portfolio of close readings – 1500 words (40%) Essay – 2000 words (60%)
Other
Reading List