Undergraduate Course: Tragedy and Modernity (ENLI10079)
Course Outline
| School | School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Course type | Standard |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 4 Undergraduate) |
Credits | 20 |
| Home subject area | English Literature |
Other subject area | None |
| Course website |
http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/literatures-languages-cultures/english-literature/undergraduate/current/honours |
Taught in Gaelic? | No |
| Course description | This course explores the attempts made by various schools of theatre to revive the concept of tragedy within modernity. The crisis in enlightenment thinking triggers a debate about the possibility (or impossibility) of the tragic. The various schools of performance tackle this issue in differing and sometimes conflicting ways. Athenian Tragedy provides a set of conventions and concepts that are reworked in modernist fashion. At the same time, it provides an example of the vexed relationships between modernity, tradition and classicism. As a reconfiguration of the sublime, the aesthetic or the political, the tragic, as form and content, helps create new languages of performance. Through the works of Ibsen, Strindberg, Wilde, O'Neill, Brecht, Beckett and Heiner Muller this course examines the types of tragedy formulated within modernity. |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes
- to familiarise students with classical as well as modern theories of tragedy
- to examine the significance of psychoanalysis for tragic theory
- to familiarise students of the significance of performance conventions
- to create awareness of movements of performance
- to create a comparative relationships between the different playwrights
- to assess the significance of tragic theory within general literary theory |
Assessment Information
1 essay of 2,500 words (25%);
1 examination essay of 3,000 words (75%)
Visiting Student Variant Assessment
1 essay of 2,500 words (25%); 1 examination essay of 3,000 words (75%) |
Special Arrangements
| Numbers are limited and students taking degrees not involving English or Scottish literature need the written approval of the head of English Literature. |
Additional Information
| Academic description |
Not entered |
| Syllabus |
Not entered |
| Transferable skills |
Not entered |
| Reading list |
Not entered |
| Study Abroad |
Not entered |
| Study Pattern |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Prof Olga Taxidou
Tel: (0131 6)50 3611
Email: Olga.Taxidou@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Ms Sheila Strathdee
Tel: (0131 6)50 3619
Email: S.Strathdee@ed.ac.uk |
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