Shakespeare and Narrative Poetry [SS 2025]

This seminar explores early modern narrative poetry, focusing on three epyllia—Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece, and Marlowe’s Hero and Leander—alongside Aemilia Lanyer’s Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum. Through close reading and discussion, we will examine how these poems engage with storytelling, gender, power, and the literary tradition, including print culture. We will also consider questions of genre: What defines an epyllion? How does Lanyer’s religious poem fit within the narrative tradition? How can narrative poetry be seen to influence other genres of poetry? By the end of the course, students will develop a deeper understanding of how Renaissance poets shaped and redefined storytelling in verse.

Content warning: The poems draw on classical, tragic, and romantic narratives which involve erotic depictions, violence, sexual violence, and suicide. It will be necessary to discuss these elements, as they are central to understanding the poems and their legacies. The nature of the content can be upsetting and distressing, so students should be aware of this before taking this course. If this is a concern, we can work out strategies to help you cope with the material directly, but it will not be possible to avoid engaging with these aspects of the texts. 

Reading materials: Scans of texts will be available on Moodle.

Assessment: Due 31.07.2025

Students are to choose 1 of the following options: 

1) Write a c.3000 word argumentative analytical essay comparing two of the texts discussed in class. Essays should present an argument about a central theme or feature of the poems.

 OR

2) Write a short narrative poem in the style of early modern narrative poetry (300-500 lines) engaging with themes, forms, and conventions from the course. The language used and the narrative told in the text can be modern, but the parallelism with the early modern examples needs to be explained. Accompany this with a 1,500 word critical reflection, explaining your creative choices in relation to the examples covered in the course.