Undergraduate

Approaching literature

On this page

• Summary
• Course content
• Entry
• Qualifications
• If you have a disability or additional requirement
• Course materials
• Teaching and assessment
• Students also studied
• Future availability
• How to register

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This course is available for study in the countries shown.

Summary

How do we work out what a text means? How does a play move from page to performance? This course offers a wide-ranging introduction to the study of literary texts – including fiction, poetry and drama. You will analyse a variety of texts in four blocks: The realist novel examines four well-known nineteenth-century novels; Romantic writings sets some of the greatest English poetry in political and cultural context; through writers like Louisa May Alcott, Alice Walker and Henrik Ibsen, you’ll explore the relationship between Literature and gender; and Shakespeare, Aphra Behn and the canon examines Shakespeare alongside the first important woman playwright.

Course content

The focus throughout the course is on texts (words on the page or drama in performance), and the course material is designed to help you to gain a full understanding of the set texts. We also introduce some of the main ways in which critics approach literature, so that you can come to an understanding of what it means to study this subject. By the end of the course you should be equipped with the knowledge and skills necessary to go on to literary studies at Level 3. The texts are grouped into four equal sections, either by date of writing or by a theme.

The realist novel The texts are Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations, classic texts that students have always enjoyed, along with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons. You study these texts as part of the development of a genre, or literary form, asking how individual writers use the form and how the form influences them as writers. How far are writers free to write as they wish? What makes a writer choose to write a novel rather than, say, a poem?

Romantic writings Recent scholarship suggests that the fullest understanding of texts is attained when they are dealt with as part of the study of their cultural and historical period. Here we look at the period 1780 to 1830 in Britain – the Romantic period – studying poems by Blake, Wordsworth, Shelley and others (again, writers considered among the finest in the language), and drawing on recent studies of European female Romantic writers. The choice of texts and topics is particularly wide; there is even optional material on short stories by the European writers Kleist and Hoffmann. Also optional is a consideration of the relationships of Romantic writings to the exotic and to colonialism.

Literature and gender You explore one of the most striking developments of recent years in the study of literature: the discovery of women’s writing, and the reinterpretation of texts by both women and men to take account of ideas about how gender works in society. You look at women writers such as the nineteenth-century poets Christina Rossetti and Emily Dickinson; the fiction writers Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Alice Walker, Jamaica Kincaid and Virginia Woolf; and the dramatists Susan Glaspell and Caryl Churchill. How men convey both positive and negative images of women is also considered, through work by authors such as Alfred Tennyson and Henrik Ibsen.

Shakespeare, Aphra Behn and the canon Since the beginnings of literary criticism, many critics have seen their role as being to select and study the best, most valuable texts. What better way to introduce this approach to literature than through the work of Shakespeare, famed not just in Britain but throughout the world? You will work in detail on a historical play (Henry V), a tragedy (Othello), and a comedy (As You Like It). Video and audio materials are used extensively throughout the section. To point up questions about the ‘canonical’ status accorded to Shakespeare, this section also includes study of The Rover by Aphra Behn, one of the first women playwrights.

The course’s teaching material consists of four specially written textbooks and three genre guides; taken together, these offer numerous examples of analysis and discussion of texts and help you to prepare for the written work you will be doing. The audio-visual material includes audio performances of the plays and full-length video productions of The Rover and Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls.

Entry

You are not necessarily expected to have taken any other Open University courses before this one. Nevertheless, it is a Level 2 course and builds on the Level 1 course The arts past and present (AA100). AA100 develops study skills such as logical thinking, clear expression, essay writing and the ability to select and interpret relevant material. It also offers an introduction to all eight disciplines in the Arts Faculty and to interdisciplinary work. Your regional or national centre will be able to tell you where you can see reference copies of AA100, or you can buy selected materials from Open University Worldwide Ltd.

If you have any doubt about the suitability of the course, please contact our Student Registration & Enquiry Service.

Preparatory work

It is essential to read as many of the set texts as you can before the course begins.

Qualifications

A210 is a compulsory course in our

• Diploma in Literature (D65)
• BA (Honours) Literature (B02)
• BA (Honours) English Language and Literature (B39)

A210 is an optional course in our

• BA (Honours) Humanities (B03)
• BA (Honours) Humanities (B03) (with Literature)

It can also count towards most of our other degrees at bachelors level, where it is suitable for a BA. We advise you to refer to the relevant qualification descriptions for information on the circumstances in which this course can count towards these qualifications because from time to time the structure and requirements may change.

If you have a disability or additional requirement

This course includes the study of a large amount of printed and audio-visual material. The printed course materials are available in comb-bound format.  The course materials and most of the set books are also available on audio in DAISY Digital Talking Book format. Written transcripts are available for the audio-visual material. Our Services for disabled students website has the latest information about availability.

If you are a new student, or new to courses using a computer or the internet, you will need to inform us of your particular needs as soon as possible, as some of our support services may take several weeks to arrange. Details of how to do this and our range of support services are described in our booklet Meeting your needs which you can download or request from our Student Registration & Enquiry Service.

You can also find information about accessible course materials, financial support and the Disabled Students' Allowance, equipment and other services, on our Services for disabled students website. It also includes our contact details for advice and support both before you register and while you are studying.

Course materials

What's included

Course books, other printed materials, DVDs, audio CDs, course website.

You will need

Television, DVD and audio-CD players.

Computing requirements

This course includes online computer activities – you can access these using a web browser that can play Flash and Shockwave.

You will need internet access and a computer. If you have purchased a new computer since 2002 it should meet your course computing requirements. Check our Technical Requirements section if your computer is older than this or is otherwise unusual.

Teaching and assessment

Support from your tutor

You will have a tutor who will help you with the course material and mark and comment on your written work, and whom you can ask for advice and guidance. We may also be able to offer group tutorials or day-schools that you are encouraged, but not obliged, to attend. Where your tutorials are held will depend on the distribution of students taking the course.

Contact our Student Registration & Enquiry Service if you want to know more about study with The Open University before you register.

Assessment

The assessment details for this course can be found in the facts box above.

You can choose whether to submit your tutor-marked assignments (TMAs) on paper or online through the eTMA system. You may want to use the eTMA system for some of your assignments but submit on paper for others. This is entirely your choice.

Assessment is an essential part of the teaching, so you are expected to complete it all. But if you unavoidably miss or do badly in an assignment, some courses allow you a ‘substitution score’. In A210 this rule can apply to one of the first six assignments only. You will be given more detailed information when you begin the course.

Students also studied

Students who studied this course also studied at some time:

• Creative writing (A215)
• The nineteenth-century novel (AA316)
• Exploring the English language (U211)
• The arts past and present (AA100)

Future availability

The details given here are for the course that starts in October 2010 and February 2011 when it will be available for the last time. 

How to register

To register a place on this course return to the top of the page and use the Click to register button. For more information and advice about registration see OU Study Explained.

About this page

An undergraduate course in Arts and Humanities.

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Student Reviews

Approaching Literature is a wide-ranging course. It covers prose, poetry and plays with an additional gender block that unites all ...
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A210 is a gem of a course. I came to it having not studied anything creative for 25 years, and ...
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