English – Texts and Contexts: Medieval to Renaissance (MA)

This MA offers students the opportunity to explore the full variety and contexts of Old English, Middle English, and Renaissance literature from the islands of Britain and Ireland, as well the afterlives and legacies of these literary traditions in the modern era.

The MA examines interactions between texts in English from these islands, tracing the beginnings of Anglo-Irish writing, as well as the cultural transmissions and transformations between classical, European, and insular intellectual and literary traditions circa 700 to circa 1700. The programme takes a particular interest in interrogating conventional boundaries between periods (such as medieval and Renaissance), genres, and media (drama, prose, poetry, oral traditions, film etc.). Modern writers and filmmakers have a fascination with the Medieval and Early Modern that goes far beyond rewritings of ancient myths, or star-studded movie versions of Shakespeare’s plays, and this programme aims to alert students to some of these recent cultural approaches. The MA programme is also stimulated by exceptional contexts and resources from medieval and early modern sites, such as Spenser’s Kilcolman Castle in north Cork, to the early printed book collections of the Boole Library’s Special Collections.

This MA offers students the opportunity to explore the full variety and contexts of Old English, Middle English, and Renaissance literature from the islands of Britain and Ireland, as well the afterlives and legacies of these literary traditions in the modern era.

The MA examines interactions between texts in English from these islands, tracing the beginnings of Anglo-Irish writing, as well as the cultural transmissions and transformations between classical, European, and insular intellectual and literary traditions circa 700 to circa 1700. The programme takes a particular interest in interrogating conventional boundaries between periods (such as medieval and Renaissance), genres, and media (drama, prose, poetry, oral traditions, film etc.). Modern writers and filmmakers have a fascination with the Medieval and Early Modern that goes far beyond rewritings of ancient myths, or star-studded movie versions of Shakespeare’s plays, and this programme aims to alert students to some of these recent cultural approaches. The MA programme is also stimulated by exceptional contexts and resources from medieval and early modern sites, such as Spenser’s Kilcolman Castle in north Cork, to the early printed book collections of the Boole Library’s Special Collections.