Undergraduate Course: Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Drama (ENLI10446)
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 examines Restoration and eighteenth-century English theatre in its social and historical contexts. We will explore a wide range of dramatic genres, from established genres - tragedy and comedy - to experimental forms like Restoration tragicomedy, heroic tragedy and farce. Key playwrights may include Dryden, Behn, Congreve, Centlivre, and Sheridan, but we will also discuss the theory and practice of performance in the period, the concurrent development of literary criticism, and the social role of the drama in this period. |
| Course description |
This course introduces students to the social world of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries through the lens of drama and performance. The course ranges across dramatic genres over a long period of literary history in order to give students a solid grounding in the drama in its social and historical contexts. The course is designed to interrogate the idea of 'enlightenment', exploring not simply the dramatic texts, their performance and the rapidly expanding print market for plays, but also the ways in which they stage a culture marked by imperial expansion, the growth of the Atlantic slave trade, enclosure, urbanisation and the shift from merchant to industrial capitalism.
Students will attend weekly seminars, for which they will prepare by reading and researching these topics independently as well as meeting in autonomous learning groups. In addition to the primary texts named in the syllabus, the students will be asked to prepare critical materials independently and to assess and apply these materials in brief seminar presentations as well as in their essays.
In addition to their work in the seminars, students will be assessed by a term essay of 2,000 words and an exam essay of 3,000 words, the first due in Week 7 and the second during the exam period.
Indicative Reading List:
Essential:
The Routledge Anthology of Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Drama, ed. Kristina Straub, Misty Anderson and Daniel O Quinn (Routledge, 2017)
Wycherley, The Country Wife (1675)
Dryden, All for Love (1677)
Etherege, The Man of Mode; or, Sir Fopling Flutter (1676)
Centlivre, The Busie Body (1709)
Lillo, The London Merchant (1731)
Sheridan, The School for Scandal (1777)
Behn, The Rover (1677), ed. Robyn Bolam (New Mermaids - Bloomsbury, 2012)
Congreve, Love for Love (1695), ed. Malcolm Kelsall (New Mermaids Bloomsbury, 1999)
Rowe, The Fair Penitent (1703) (on Learn)
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
|
Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | Available to students studying on the English and Scottish Honours degree programmes. Available to visiting students in English and Scottish literature. |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
|
| Academic year 2026/27, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 0 |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 20,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
176 )
|
| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
|
| Additional Information (Assessment) |
30% 2000-word midterm essay
70% 3000-word final essay
Midterm essay meets LO 1, 3, 4
Final essay meets LO 1-4 |
| Feedback |
Students receive individual feedback for all coursework components. Students receive feedback on a formative coursework essay in advance of submitting their final (summative) essay. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- analyse and critically assess a variety of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century and contemporary literary and critical material;
- devise clear, coherent arguments about the relationships among literary texts and their wider seventeenth- and eighteenth-century cultural contexts;
- understand key elements of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century performance practice and theory;
- present their historically and critically informed analyses in both written and oral formats.
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
This course will encourage students to:
- independently research and analyse challenging materials;
- effectively communicate their conclusions in different mediums and contexts;
- work collaboratively to solve problems;
- understand and develop sensitive responses to historical inequities. |
| Special Arrangements |
Access to School of Scottish Studies Archive and the Centre for Research Collections essential. |
| Keywords | Eighteenth-century drama,theatre,performance,imperialism,sex and gender |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Rebecca Tierney-Hynes
Tel: (0131 6)50 8410
Email: r.tierneyhynes@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | |
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