This course opens a window into the vibrant world of British poetry and drama from the 14th to the 17th centuries—a period when English literature discovered its voice and vision. From Chaucer’s lively portraits of human nature to the spiritual grace of Spenser and Donne, and the dramatic brilliance of Marlowe and Shakespeare, students will explore how poets and playwrights gave artistic form to the dreams, doubts, and desires of their age.
Through a close study of representative works, learners will encounter a literary landscape alive with moral questioning, wit, passion, and philosophical depth. Each text reveals how language evolved into a powerful medium of imagination and inquiry—transforming private emotion into public art, and mirroring the shifting currents of faith, power, and identity.
Intended for
undergraduate students of English literature,
the course cultivates critical insight, aesthetic appreciation, and
interpretive confidence. It invites learners to experience poetry and
drama as living dialogues between art and life—works that
continue to reveal the enduring truths of human thought, emotion, and
imagination.
1. Geoffrey Chaucer The Wife of Bath’s Prologue,
Philip Sidney ‘Sonnet 1’
2. Edmund Spenser Selections from Amoretti:Sonnet LXVII ‘Like as a huntsman...’ Sonnet LVII ‘Sweet warrior...’Sonnet LXXV ‘One day I wrote her name...’
John Donne ‘The Sunne Rising’ ‘Batter My Heart’ “Valediction: forbidding mourning’
3. Christopher Marlowe Doctor Faustus
4. William Shakespeare Macbeth
5. William Shakespeare Twelfth Night
| Course Status : | Upcoming |
| Course Type : | Core |
| Language for course content : | English |
| Duration : | 16 weeks |
| Category : |
|
| Credit Points : | 5 |
| Level : | Undergraduate |
| Start Date : | 01 Jan 2026 |
| End Date : | 30 Apr 2026 |
| Enrollment Ends : | 28 Feb 2026 |
| Exam Date : | |
| Translation Languages : | English |
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Week 1 |
Day
1 |
Introduction |
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Day
2 |
Understanding the Middle English World and Framing the
Journey: From Medieval Faith to Renaissance Humanism |
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|
Day
3 |
Geoffrey Chaucer: Life, Legacy, and the Birth of English
Literature |
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Day 4 |
Self Study |
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Day 5 |
Test |
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Week 2 |
Day
1 |
The Wife of Bath: A Character Sketch |
|
Day
2 |
Close Reading - The Wife of Bath's Prologue (Part I) |
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Day
3 |
Close Reading - The Wife of Bath's Prologue (Part II) |
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Day 4 |
Self Study |
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Day 5 |
Test |
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Week 3 |
Day
1 |
Critical Perspectives - Feminism, Satire, and Subversion;
Reception and Legacy of The Wife of Bath's Prologue |
|
Day
2 |
Sir Philip Sidney: Herald of the English Renaissance |
|
|
Day
3 |
Close Reading of Sidney's Sonnet 1: From Imitation to
Inspiration |
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Day 4 |
Self Study |
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Day 5 |
Test |
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Week 4 |
Day
1 |
Edmund Spenser: His Life, Sonnets, and the Innovation of
Amoretti |
|
Day
2 |
Edmund Spenser - Sonnet No. LXXV: "One Day I Wrote
Her Name Upon the Strand" |
|
|
Day
3 |
Edmund Spenser - Sonnet No. LVII: "Sweet Warrior!
When Shall I Have Peace with You?" |
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Day 4 |
Self Study |
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Day 5 |
Test |
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Week 5 |
Day
1 |
Edmund Spenser - Sonnet No. LXVII: "Like as a
Huntsman After Weary Chase" |
|
Day
2 |
Spenser's Vision of Love and English Poetry: Fashioning
the English Muse in Amoretti |
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|
Day
3 |
John Donne: The Poet of Paradox and Passion - Life and
Legacy |
|
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Day 4 |
Self Study |
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Day 5 |
Test |
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Week 6 |
Day
1 |
Close Reading - "The Sun Rising": Love, Cosmos,
and Microcosm |
|
Day
2 |
Close Reading - "A Valediction: Forbidding
Mourning": Love and Soul in Motion |
|
|
Day
3 |
Close Reading - "Batter My Heart": Theological
Paradox and Divine Violence |
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Day 4 |
Self Study |
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Day 5 |
Test |
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Week 7 |
Day
1 |
The Metaphysical Method: Wit, Conceit, and Philosophical
Poetry |
|
Day
2 |
Christopher Marlowe: Life and the Spirit of His Age |
|
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Day
3 |
Reading the Chorus (Prologue) of Doctor Faustus |
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Day 4 |
Self Study |
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Day 5 |
Test |
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Week 8 |
Day
1 |
Acts I, Scenes I-II - Knowledge, Doubt, and the Rise of
the Renaissance Individual |
|
Day
2 |
Act I, Scene III - The Devil's Pact: Sin, Ambition, and the
Divided Self |
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Day
3 |
Act II, Scene I - The Bargain Signed: Illusion, Power, and
the Price of a Soul |
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Day 4 |
Self Study |
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Day 5 |
Test |
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Week 9 |
Day
1 |
Acts II-IV - Soliloquies, Desire, and Moral Decline |
|
Day
2 |
Act V, Scene I and the Final Soliloquy - Terror, Regret,
and the Fall of Faustus |
|
|
Day
3 |
Act V - Comedy, the Grotesque, and the Last Hour |
|
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Day 4 |
Self Study |
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Day 5 |
Test |
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Week 10 |
Day
1 |
Who Is Faustus? Hero, Sinner, or Seeker? - Heresy,
Humanism, and the Renaissance Mind (Discussion) |
|
Day
2 |
Marlowe's Legacy: Faustus and the Modern Tragic Hero
(Discussion) |
|
|
Day
3 |
William Shakespeare: From Stratford to the Stage - The
Making of the Bard |
|
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Day 4 |
Self Study |
|
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Day 5 |
Test |
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Week 11 |
Day
1 |
The Renaissance Stage and the Structure of Shakespearean
Tragedy |
|
Day
2 |
Witches and the World Upside Down - Fate, Prophecy, and
Macbeth's Fall (Act I, Scenes I-III) |
|
|
Day
3 |
Ambition and the Dagger - Macbeth's Inner Conflict and
Moral Collapse (Act I, Scene VII; Act II, Scene I) |
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Day 4 |
Self Study |
|
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Day 5 |
Test |
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Week 12 |
Day
1 |
Lady Macbeth - Gender, Guilt, and the Psychology of Power
(Act I, Scene V; Act V, Scene I) |
|
Day
2 |
The Murder of Duncan - Blood, Night, and the Symbolism of
Betrayal (Act II, Scene II) |
|
|
Day
3 |
Banquo, Macduff, and Malcolm - Moral Foils and Ethical
Choices |
|
|
Day 4 |
Self Study |
|
|
Day 5 |
Test |
|
|
Week 13 |
Day
1 |
Kingship, Tyranny, and the Collapse of Order - Macbeth's
Final Acts (Act V, Scenes V-VIII) |
|
Day
2 |
Completing Macbeth: Summary, Unseen Motifs, and Global
Performance (Discussion) |
|
|
Day
3 |
Final Reflections - Evil, Fear, and Tragic Insight in
Macbeth (Discussion) |
|
|
Day 4 |
Self Study |
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Day 5 |
Test |
|
|
Week 14 |
Day
1 |
The Spirit of Comedy: Introduction to the Shakespearean
Comic Tradition |
|
Day
2 |
Comic Beginnings in Twelfth Night: Melancholy, Music, and
a Shipwreck (Act I, Scenes I-II) |
|
|
Day
3 |
Twelfth Night, Act I, Scenes 3-4 - Illyria as a Comic
World: Festivity, Freedom, and New Identities |
|
|
Day 4 |
Self Study |
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Day 5 |
Test |
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Week 15 |
Day
1 |
Twelfth Night, Act II - Desire, Disguise, and the Drama of
Emotion |
|
|
Day
2 |
Acts III-IV of Twelfth Night - The Comedy and Chaos of
Mistaken Identity |
|
Day
3 |
Malvolio, Antonio, and the Dark Side of Laughter - Satire,
Comic Cruelty, and Chaos in Illyria |
|
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Day 4 |
Self Study |
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Day 5 |
Test |
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Week 16 |
Day
1 |
Feste's Wisdom and the Music of Comedy - Wit, Song, and
Melancholy |
|
Day
2 |
Crafting Comedy - Structure, Language, and Shakespeare's
Style |
|
|
Day
3 |
Shakespeare's Comic Vision: Twelfth Night - Identity,
Disguise, and the Comic World (Discussion) |
|
|
Day 4 |
Self Study |
|
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Day 5 |
Test |
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|
Week 17 |
Day
1 |
From Masks to Mirrors - The Wisdom and Legacy of
Shakespearean Comedy (Discussion) |
|
Day
2 |
A Concluding Reflection on Early English Poetry and Drama
(14th-17th Century) |
|
|
Day
3 |
Assignment |
|
|
Day 4 |
Self Study |
|
|
Day 5 |
Test |
Primary Texts
Chaucer, Geoffrey. The
Canterbury Tales. Edited by A. C. Cawley, Oxford University Press, 2017.
Sidney, Philip. Astrophil and
Stella. Edited by Katherine Duncan-Jones, Oxford World’s Classics, 1998.
Spenser, Edmund. Amoretti and
Epithalamion. Edited by H. E. Rollins, Cambridge University Press, 1979.
Donne, John. The Complete
English Poems. Edited by A. J. Smith, Penguin Classics, 1996.
—. John Donne: The Major Works.
Edited by John Carey, Oxford University Press, 2000.
Marlowe, Christopher. Doctor
Faustus. Edited by David Bevington and Eric Rasmussen, Manchester
University Press, 2018.
—. The Tragical History of
Doctor Faustus. Edited by Roma Gill, Oxford World’s Classics, 2008.
Shakespeare, William. Macbeth.
Edited by Stephen Orgel, Penguin Classics, 2000.
—. Twelfth Night. Edited
by Elizabeth Story Donno, Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Secondary and Critical References
Abrams, M. H. A Glossary of
Literary Terms. 11th ed., Cengage Learning, 2015.
Abrams, M. H., and Geoffrey
Harpham, editors. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Vol. 1,
10th ed., W. W. Norton, 2018.
Bradbrook, M. C. Themes and
Conventions of Elizabethan Tragedy. Cambridge University Press, 1980.
Daiches, David. A Critical
History of English Literature. Vol. 1, Secker & Warburg, 1960.
Greenblatt, Stephen. Renaissance
Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare. University of Chicago Press,
1980.
Legouis, Emile, and Louis
Cazamian. A History of English Literature: The Middle Ages to the Nineteenth
Century. Macmillan, 1971.
Sanders, Andrew. The Short
Oxford History of English Literature. 4th ed., Oxford University Press,
2014.
Leech, Clifford. Shakespeare’s
Tragedies and Other Studies in Seventeenth-Century Drama. Chatto &
Windus, 1950.
Dr. Vandana Rajoriya, Assistant Professor in the
Department of English and OEL at Dr. Harisingh Gour Vishwavidyalaya (A
Central University), Sagar, is a passionate teacher, poet, and researcher
with over fifteen years of dedicated service to literature and learning. Her
teaching brings together the elegance of British Language and Literature,
the depth of Indian and European Classics, and the aesthetic grace of
Poetic and Theatrical Traditions—creating a classroom where ideas come
alive.
A Gold Medalist and Ph.D. in English
from the same university, Dr. Rajoriya’s doctoral work, “Transformation of
Poetic Discourse in Rasa Theory and Post-Structuralism,” reflects her love
for connecting ancient thought with modern literary theory. She has authored four
books, including two collections of poetry, and published numerous
research papers and chapters in reputed journals and anthologies.
Her lectures on the Origin and Development of
Greek Theatre, recorded for the Sanskriti Channel (SWAYAM-Prabha, MHRD),
reach learners across India. As Editor of Madhya Bharti (UGC-CARE Journal)
and a member of several editorial boards, she continues to nurture research and
creativity. Dr. Rajoriya’s teaching blends scholarship, imagination, and
empathy—inviting every learner to experience literature as a journey of the
mind and spirit.
1. End-Term Examination
Weightage: 70% of the final result
Minimum Passing Criteria: 40%
2. Internal Assessment
Weightage: 30% of the final result
Minimum Passing Criteria: 40%
Calculation of Internal Assessment (IA) Marks:
Out of all graded weekly assessments/assignments, the top 50% of scores will be considered for calculating the final Internal Assessment marks.
Eligibility for SWAYAM Credit Certificate:
Students must secure at least 40% marks in both the Internal Assessment and the End-Term Proctored Examination, separately, to be eligible for the SWAYAM Credit Certificate.
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