Unit information: Travellers' Tales in 2013/14

Unit name	Travellers' Tales
Unit code	ENGL20024
Credit points	20
Level of study	I/5
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24)
Unit director	Dr. Tamsin Badcoe
Open unit status	Not open
Pre-requisites	None.
Co-requisites	None.
School/department	Department of English
Faculty	Faculty of Arts

Description including Unit Aims

In this unit we will move between works of imaginative literature, non-fiction and cartography, in order to consider how the late medieval and early modern geographical imagination engages with both the global and the local. Recent scholarship has taken great interest in how space and movement is represented and conceptualised in literature, and the late medieval and early modern periods offer a rich terrain to explore. From the far-ranging questing of medieval romance and early accounts of wonders in the East, to Elizabethan reports of precarious colonies established in Ireland and the New World, this unit explores the imaginative travails of texts and images which have travel and encounter at the heart of their structure. We will look at a mixture of ‘travellers’ tales’ as they appear in prose, poetry and drama, and consider how literary engagements with geography shape our ideas about home, exile, discovery and the wider world.

Intended Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit students will have (1) developed a detailed knowledge and critical understanding of early English travel writing and its relation to medieval and early modern geographical thought; (2) in-depth understanding of the theoretical contexts that inform thinking about space and place in textual and cartographical representations; 3) demonstrated the ability to analyse and evaluate differing critical accounts of the primary literature; (4) demonstrated the ability to identify and evaluate pertinent evidence in order to illustrate/demonstrate a cogent argument. 5) strengthened skills in argumentation and academic writing.

Teaching Information

1 x 2-hour seminar per week.

Assessment Information

One short essay of 2000 words (33.3%) and one long essay of 4000 words (66.7%). Both summative elements will assess (1) knowledge and understanding of medieval and early modern literary geographies; test (2) students’ understanding of the theoretical contexts informing medieval and early modern conceptions of space and place. In addition the essays will test (3, 4 and 5) students’ ability to analyse and assess competing accounts of the primary texts; their ability to adduce pertinent textual material in support of their argument and their ability to present that argument lucidly and in accordance with academic conventions.

Reading and References

• Campbell, Mary B., The Witness and the Other World: Exotic European Travel Writing, 400-1600 (New York: Cornell University Press, 1988)

• Hadfield, Andrew, ed., Amazons, Savages and Machiavels: Travel and Colonial Writing in English 1550-1630: An Anthology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001)

• Heng, Geraldine, Empire of Magic: Medieval Romance and the Politics of Cultural Fantasy (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003)

• Mancall, Peter C., ed., Travel Narratives from the Age of Discovery: An Anthology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006)

• Parr, Anthony, ed., Three Renaissance Travel Plays (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999)

• Turchi, Peter, Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer (Texas: Trinity University Press, 2004)