LITC0027: Canons and Creativity: Period, Context, Text (21/22)

Considerations and disputes about the role of literary canons are essential to Comparative Literature. This module invites students to reflect on the history and changing cultural and political significance of literary canons in a wide variety of context. Our three case studies - the Book of Revelation; Frankenstein; the myths of Antigone - are foundational texts, whose cultural influence is widely felt, across national literatures and different languages. We will consider how these texts came to occupy their central roles in world literature, and how they have been (re-)read and (re)written in different periods, including the present.