Undergraduate Course: Voices in the North: Older Scots Literature (ENLI10440)
Course Outline
| School | School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course explores the vibrancy of Older Scots literature, from the fourteenth-century to the sixteenth centuries, tracing its development from its earliest known material to experiments in satire and genre. Spanning heroic narratives, political poetry, romance, and the influence of humanism, the course explores how Scottish writers of the period used literature as means to negotiate questions of identity, morality, gender, and power. Medieval Scottish texts often confront readers with unfamiliar linguistic, cultural, and ethical frameworks. In engaging with these works, students are invited to question commonly-held assumptions about how ideas about justice, love, faith, identity, and power have evolved and how these conceptions continue to resonate - productively and provocatively - in the contemporary world. |
| Course description |
This course offers a concentrated exploration of Scottish literary works from the medieval period, examining how they reflect and shape the cultural, political, and linguistic landscapes of early Scotland. Through close engagement with a range of Older Scots texts - some very well known, others less so - students will gain a critical understanding of the themes, genres, and intellectual traditions that characterise the period. Over the course of the semester, students will examine how medieval Scottish writers used literature to negotiate questions of identity, morality, gender, and power. Throughout, the course facilitates close examination of primary texts as both literary artefacts and as products of their historical, cultural, and linguistic environments. In doing so, students are encouraged to identify, analyse, and critically evaluate central medieval literary themes and conceptual frameworks, such as religion, the body, social and political relationships. Students will encounter a variety of Older Scots literature, including historical narrative, romance, courtly allegory, and devotional writing. Each week,we will read our texts with close attention and sensitivity to questions of form, content, and thematic subject-matter, exploring issues such as representations of bodies, politics, love, and emotions to trace how literature both reflected and helped to shape the perspectives of late medieval Scotland.
The course is taught through weekly seminars and supported by autonomous learning groups to provide a collaborative space in which to test ideas, practise close reading, and explore the interplay between textual detail and broader thematic concerns. Students are expected to engage actively and thoughtfully with each week's primary texts. Preparatory reading is essential and students should arrive to class ready to contribute to discussion, ask questions, and reflect on how the texts medieval contexts shape their meanings. Short reflective tasks may be used to consolidate learning, foster independent critical thinking, and encourage connections between seminar discussion and formal analysis. Students will be assessed through a mid-semester close-reading essay and an end-of-semester thematic essay addressing key concerns covered by the course. By the end of the course, students should have gained a nuanced understanding of Older Scots literature and the critical methodologies required for its advanced study.
This is an indicative reading list and may be subject to change:
Essential:
Robert Henryson, The Morall Fabillis
John Barbour, The Brus
William Dunbar, To the Merchantis of Edinburgh; Bewty and the Prisoneir; The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy; In Prays of Woman; Lang heff I maed of Ladyes Quhytt
The Lufaris Complaynt
The Wife of Auchtermuchty
The Gyre Carling
Gavin Douglas, The Eneados
Religious and Secular lyrics from the Bannatyne Manuscript
The Crying of Ane Play
Recommended:
Kate Ash-Irisarri, Rewriting the Past in Scottish Literature, 1350-1550
Caroline Walker Bynum, Why all the fuss about the body? A Medievalists Perspective
Richard Godden, Neighboring Disability in Medieval Literature
Doyeeta Majumder, Counselling the Counsellors: Sir David Lyndsay's Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis
James A. Schultz, Heterosexuality as a Threat to Medieval Studies
Caitlin Flynn, Two Cailleacha in Older Scots Comic Poetry
Joan Anim-Addo and Susan Scafe (eds), I am Black/White/Yellow: An Introduction to the Black Body in Europe
Geraldine Heng, The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages
Wan-Chuan Kao, White Before Whiteness in the Late Middle Ages
Dorothy Yamamoto, The Boundaries of the Human in Medieval English Literature
Ninon Dubourg, et al, Medieval Histories of Disability and Emotions: An Introduction
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
|
Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | This course is available to visiting students |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2026/27, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 0 |
| Course Start |
Semester 1 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 20,
Other Study Hours 10,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
166 )
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| Additional Information (Learning and Teaching) |
Autonomous Learning Group Hours: 10
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Mid-Semester Close Reading Exercise: 1 x 2000-word critical close reading of an extract from a set list taken from the literary texts studied in Weeks 1-5 (30% weighting). Close Reading Essay meets LOs 2, 3, 4, 5.
End of Semester: 1 x 3000-word essay critically engaging with the themes of the course, literary criticism, and using material from across the whole course (70% weighting). Final Essay meets LOs 1, 2, 3, 5.
The marking criteria for the Close Reading Essay will follow the Department of English and Scottish Literature Criteria for Assessment Close Reading Essay. |
| Feedback |
Students will receive feedback in the following formats:
1. Students will receive formative feedback on all written assignments. Feedback for the mid-semester essay will be available before submission of the final essay.
2. Students receive in-class formative feedback from peers and seminar leader on the work completed during autonomous learning groups.
3. Students are encouraged to meet with the course organiser during drop-in hours or at another pre-arranged time for verbal feedback in advance of, and following, assignment submission. Students with specified learning adjustments that allow for submissions of essay plans in progress are expressly encouraged to submit these to the course organiser. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Analyse and respond critically to a variety of Older Scots texts and genres
- Evaluate Older Scots Texts in relation to their historical, cultural, and intellectual contexts, and apply this knowledge to support textual interpretation
- Identify and appraise relevant evidence to construct coherent and persuasive arguments in both oral and written discussions
- Produce an extended, passage-based close reading that sustains detailed text-centred analysis of how meaning is produced through the extract's language, form, and structure
- Evaluate and assess ideas from a range of non-literary sources to support arguments
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Reading List
| https://eu01.alma.exlibrisgroup.com/leganto/nui/lists/59977010080002466?institute=44UOE_INST&auth=SAML&continue= |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
This course will promote the following graduate attributes:
1. Curiosity for learning that makes a positive difference
2. Courage to expand and fulfil their potential
The course addresses the value of learning about past cultures not only for their own sake but also for enriching understanding about how contemporary knowledge has been built and can be interrogated. This is applicable in both literary studies and wider contexts.
3. Creative problem solvers and researchers
4. Effective and influential contributors
Students will be encouraged to engage with a range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary methods and concepts - such as book history, the history of emotions - and consider how they can be applied to an understanding of (a) historical periods, and (b) the production and reception of literary works. Students are invited to follow and develop their own interests in particular methodologies and ways of reading appropriate to the study of literary works.
5. Skilled communicators
The course asks students to address not only difficult topics, but also to reflect on the 'strangeness' of medieval literature as a productive springboard for critical enquiry. It asks them reflect on these issues with sensitivity and clarity. |
| Keywords | Medieval literature,Scottish Literature,Older Scots |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Kate Ash-Irisarri
Tel: (0131 6)50 8930
Email: K.Ash-Irisarri@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | |
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