English Renaissance Literature

After completing this course you will have:

• acquired a broad understanding of the most important literary trends in renaissance England;
• gained the ability to see these trends as connected with the ideas and socio-political development of the period;
• developed your critical reading and writing skills.

The course assumes a good proficiency in written and oral English

The student must have been accepted into the master || chr(38) ||#39;s degree programme in literary studies or the teacher education programme (LAP).

Students at UiO must apply for courses in StudentWeb.

International applicants, if you are not already enrolled as a student at UiO, please see our information about admission requirements and procedures for international applicants.

The examination in this course is not available for external candidates. Only students admitted to the course may sit for the examination.

Seminar, two hours per week for 14 weeks, 28 hours in all.

Attendance is an obligatory class requirement (80%). Additional absences must be justified (please contact the exam coordinator).

Students must turn in an essay (app. 5 standard pages, 11.500 characters) by a stated deadline during the semester.
The essay must be approved before the final exam.

You can usually resit an exam, but the conditions depend on whether you had a valid reason for absence from the regular exam. Read more about resitting an exam.

Grades are awarded on a scale from A to F, where A is the best grade and F is a fail. Read more about the grading system.

The result can be found at the StudentWeb within three weeks after the exam.

English

You may request an explanation of your grades, and you may also appeal against your grades or make a complaint about formal examination errors. Read more about explanations and appeals.

Evaluation

Feedback from our students is essential if we are to provide the best possible education. As a student at the University of Oslo you will be asked to participate in various types of evaluation of our courses. Every time a course is given, we ask students to participate in mid-term evaluations, and periodically we ask them to participate in periodic evaluation of the course.

Reports from periodic evaluations (in Norwegian)

Overlapping courses

Textbook (obligatory):

• Isabel Rivers, Classical and Christian Ideas in English Renaissance Poetry: A Students’ Guide, 2nd edn (London: Routledge, 1994)

Literary texts are in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, vol. 1, 8th edition (New York: Norton, 2003), but please note the preferred edition of Shakespeare, Twelfth Night (see below).

Play:

• William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night (ed. E. S. Donno, The New Cambridge Shakespeare, Cambridge University Press, 2004)

Poems:

• Edmund Spenser, three sonnets from Amoretti: 64 (Comming to kisse her lyps), 68 (Most glorious Lord of lyfe), 75 (One day I wrote her name upon the strand)
• William Shakespeare, Sonnet 130 (My Mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun) and 138 (When my love swears that she is made of truth)
• John Donne, ‘The Good Morrow’, ‘The Apparition’, ‘A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning’, ‘The Relic’, Elegy 19 (‘To his Mistress going to Bed’), Holy Sonnets 1, 5, 13, 14, 17, 19; ‘A Hymn to God the Father’
• Ben Jonson, ‘To the Memory of My Beloved, The Author, Mr. William Shakespeare, and What He Hath Left Us’ , ‘To John Donne’, ‘Ode to Himself’
• George Herbert, ‘The Altar’, ‘Redemption’, ‘Easter Wings’, ‘Prayer (1)’, ‘Denial’, ‘Man’, ‘Time’, ‘Death’, ‘Love (3)’
• Richard Crashaw, ‘To the Noblest & best of Ladies, the Countess of Denbigh’, incl. ‘Non vi’ (Not by force)
• Thomas Carew, ‘An Elegy upon the

If you have a disability or a health problem that entails significant inconvenience in an examination situation, you may be considered for special examination arrangements. Mothers who are breastfeeding may apply for extra time to complete the exam.

A student may sit this exam up to 3 times. If a student wishes to withdraw from the exam, s/he must do so in StudentWeb at least two weeks prior to the first day of the exam. Failure to do so will be counted as one of the three opportunities to sit the exam.

Once the course requirements have been fulfilled, they remain valid for the current and the next two semesters that the course is taught.