This module is 100% assessed.

You may choose assessment by either 2 x 5000-word essays or 1 x 5000-word essay and 1 x creative project with supporting essay of 2000 words.

Assessment 1

Deadline for submission: Term 1, Week 11

Choose one of the following questions:

1. Create an adaptation of Troilus and Cressida in any medium, along with a supporting essay of 2000 words. Proposals must be submitted to the module tutor by the Monday of Term 1, Week 6. (Advice on creative projects can be found here.)
2. “…one can never say, in an absolute sense, what Hamlet is, or where one can find it: there is no thing that will always, forever, be Hamlet” (Margaret Jane Kidnie, ‘Where is Hamlet?’).
   Where is Troilus and Cressida? Discuss with reference to two or more texts.
3. Compare Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida with one or more of its sources. What are the effects of Shakespeare’s changes?
4. Explore the ways in which changing ideas about sex and gender have affected the ways in which Troilus and Cressida has been re-made.
5. Examine the impact of real-life warfare upon the ways in which Troilus and Cressida has been re-made.
6. Can adaptation be a form of critique? Discuss with reference to two or more adaptations of the Troilus and Cressida story.
7. How has Troilus and Cressida been adapted to changing audience tastes and expectations? Discuss with reference to two or more texts.
8. How important is social and historical context in the study of Shakespeare’s cultural afterlife? Discuss with reference to Troilus and Cressida and at least one other text.
9. Can we reconstruct performance from archival sources, and what can we learn from the attempt to do so? Discuss two or more examples, with particular reference to Troilus and Cressida.
10. Discuss the ways in which a detailed knowledge of Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida can enrich a reading of Olivia Manning’s The Great Fortune and/or Eric Shanower’s The Age of Bronze: Betrayal. (N.B. Both of these books are parts of longer series: you may wish to refer to other books in these series.)
11. Contrast the approaches to translation apparent in two or more translations of the Troilus and Cressida story.
12. “Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,
    Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,
    A great-sized monster of ingratitudes.
    Those scraps are good deeds past, which are
    Devoured as fast as they are made, forgot
    As soon as done.” (Troilus and Cressida, 3.3.146-51)
    To what extent does the history of the Troilus and Cressida story itself illustrate Ulysses’ speech about the effects of “envious and calumniating Time”?
13. Devise your own question in consultation with your tutor. Proposals must be submitted to the module tutor by the Monday of Term 1, Week 6.

Assessment 2

Deadline for submission: Term 3, Week 3

Devise an essay question or a creative project in consultation with your tutor. Deadline for proposals: Term 2, Week 6. Creative projects must be accompanied with a supporting essay of 2000 words. Advice on creative projects can be found here.