Tragedy

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

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.

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.