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Tragedy

Overview

  • Credit value: 30 credits at Level 5
  • Convenor: Dr Gillian Woods
  • Assessment: a 2500-word essay (50%) and 48-hour take-home examination (50%)

Module description

In this module we consult theories of tragedy from Aristotle and Artaud to Raymond Williams and Terry Eagleton. Together we will study a number of major texts within the canon of tragic literature, which may include:

  • Sophocles, Oedipus the King
  • Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus
  • Shakespeare, King Lear
  • Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D'Urbervilles
  • Samuel Beckett, Endgame
  • Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman
  • Toni Morrison, Beloved
  • Sarah Kane, Phaedra’s Love
  • Kamila Shamsie, Home Fire.

You will be encouraged to consider the virtues and limits of tragedy as a way of reading and classifying literature; the political implications of the idea of tragedy; and whether classical ideas of tragedy can remain relevant in the contemporary world.

Learning objectives

By the end of this module you will:

  • have considered the virtues and limits of tragedy as a way of reading and classifying literature
  • understand the political implications of the idea of tragedy
  • have investigated whether classical ideas of tragedy can remain relevant in the contemporary world.