Information for 2026/27
Module Outline
This module will run in Term 1. In the first week we will study what was possibly the final play performed on the public stage in London before the closure of the theatres, Richard Brome's A Jovial Crew. On the one hand this is a light comedy about people pretending to be beggars. On the other, it has a lot to say about the religious and political ideas being debated in the early 1640s.
After Week 1, the module proceeds roughly chronologically through the middle decades of the 17th century. Each week we will examine interesting literature about specific topics in a variety of forms and genres like newspapers, controversial pamphlets, prophecy, satire, elegy, and panegyric. We will look at the debates about the freedom of the press, the perspective of an English settler in America on the wars in her homeland, the poetry about the execution of King Charles I and the Republican and Protectoral regimes that followed, and the astonishing prose and verse produced by various sectarian groups like the Diggers, the Ranters, and the Fifth Monarchists.
Syllabus 2026/27
A Talis Aspire reading list is under construction for the module and will include details of suggested critical reading and electronic texts provided by the Library.
Week 1: England on the Edge: Richard Brome, A Jovial Crew (1641). For the first seminar, please read A Jovial Crew. You can read this either in the or you can buy or you can use Ann Haaker's older edition that will be linked to on the module reading list. I will be using the Stern edition but the other options are fine.
Week 2: Print and Politics: John Milton, Areopagitica (1644). Text to be provided as a scan / e-book via the module reading list.
Week 3: The Old Country and the New: Anne Bradstreet, poems from The Tenth Muse (1650). Poems be provided from an e-book via the module reading list.
Week 4: Regicide Literature: Poems about the execution of Charles I. Poems will be provided from an e-book via the module reading list.
Week 5: Republican and Protectoral Poetics. Poems will be provided from e-books / PDFs via the module reading list.
Week 7: The Ranters: Abiezer Coppe, A Fiery Flying Roll (1649). Text will be provided as an e-book via the module reading list.
Week 8: The Diggers: Gerrard Winstanley, The True Levellers Standard (1650); selection of Digger ballads and poetry. Texts will be provided as e-books via the module reading list.
Week 9: The Fifth Monarchists: Anna Trapnel, The Cry of a Stone (1654). You have a choice of whether to purchase (or borrow one of the three copies in the library) or to access the text on the database Women Writers Online through the Library ().
Week 10: The Restoration: Dryden, Astraea Redux (1660); Lucy Hutchinson, poems from Elegies (1660s). Texts provided as scans / e-books via the module reading list.
Module Convenor:
John West
Teaching Methods:
9 x 1hr lectures; 9 x 1hr seminars.
Assessment:
Intermediates:
- 1 x formative 750-word close reading exercise
- 1 x summative 3000-word essay written in response to a title from a list provided by the convenor.
Finalists:
- 1 x formative 750-word close reading exercise
- 1 x summative 4000-word essay written in response to a research topic devised by students.
Resources and Seminar Materials
You do not have to buy any books for this module unless you want to (see the syllabus outline). All texts are provided through the module reading list or online. A link to the module's Talis Aspire reading list will appear here shortly.
More detailed instructions on preparing for seminars will also appear here shortly.
Preparatory Reading
Before the module begins in Term 1, you could read:
- our Week 1 text, Richard Brome's A Jovial Crew;
- a short introduction to the historical period such as Blair Worden's The English Civil Wars (2010);
- some of the essays in The Oxford Handbook of the Literature of the English Revolution ed. Knoppers (2012), which will provide a lot of our critical readings for the lectures and seminars.