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Courses taught at the Paul Mellon Centre cover British literature,
drama, history, and history of art and of architecture. Students may
apply for Yale-in-London without regard to their declared or intended
major. Literature and drama classes fall in Group I of Yale academic
subjects for distribution requirement purposes, and courses in history,
history of art and of architecture fall in Group II. Courses are taught
by the Yale faculty based at the Paul Mellon Centre, by professors
visiting from Yale and by leading British academics. They take full
advantage of the unique facilities a great city such as London has
to offer: the outstanding theatres and fringe scene, art galleries,
fantastic historic architecture, and buildings associated with poets,
novelists, playwrights and with the very fabric of British and world
history. Fieldwork visits form an important part of all courses and
for each program there will be a residential field trip to relevant
and exciting locations outside London or even elsewhere in Europe.
More detail on the Program in general and on the courses below can
be found on the Paul Mellon Centre’s Web
site.
Jessica Brantley, Associate Professor, Yale University
This course explores early English literature through one of its most persistent and popular genres: the dream-vision. Topics to be considered include courtly fantasies, spiritual revelations and prophetic allegories. Beginning with the complex representation of dreaming in Chaucer's Nun's Priest's Tale , we will survey the problems of interpretation posed by visions that range from reverie to nightmare. The English fourteenth century saw a great flowering of vernacular dream visions, and we will read Chaucer's courtly contributions to the form—the Book of the Duchess , the Parliament of Fowls , and the House of Fame —as well as fourteenth-century spiritual dreams such as the “Visio” of Piers Plowman ; the anonymous Pearl ; and the Revelations of Julian of Norwich. Women's visions as recorded in the Book of Margery Kempe , the writings of Christine de Pisan, and the anonymous Assembly of Ladies will allow us to ask whether the gender of the dreamer makes a difference to the authority and meaning of the dream. Finally, we will reflect on the afterlife of medieval dreams through early modern works such as William Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream and Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene . The course will incorporate manuscript materials held in the British Library, both textual and visual, to enhance students' understanding of medieval and Renaissance literary culture. No experience with early literature is required; most medieval texts will be read in translation.
Martin Postle, Assistant Director for Academic Activities, Paul Mellon Centre
During the period from the accession of King George I in 1714 to the death of King George IV in 1830, a complete transformation took place in the artistic climate of Britain . This resulted in British art dramatically expanding its boundaries, reflecting the lives and interests of a wide spectrum of society, both at home and abroad. A number of the native artists who came to the forefront, including William Hogarth, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough, George Stubbs, J.M.W. Turner, and John Constable, form the focus of this course. The relative contribution of these figures will be considered, not in a monographic approach, but rather through their contribution to the evolution of certain genres, such as landscape and portraiture, and within the wider context of the political and cultural history of the period. London will be the focus of the course, facilitated by visits to art galleries and museums. There will also be an accompanied three-day field trip centered upon the city of Bath.
Roger Lockyer, University of London.
This course is a study of seventeenth-century England 's turbulent political history. It will begin with an examination of the breakdown of the Tudor consensus. It will continue by looking at the establishment of the Stuart dynasty and the attempt of Charles I to rule without Parliament. The Civil War will be studied, followed by the Restoration of Charles II, the brief reign of James II ending with the “Glorious Revolution” and finally, the struggle for stability in politics and society during the reigns of William and Mary and Queen Anne.
Jessica Brantley, Associate Professor, Yale University
A study of representative works of twentieth and twenty-first century British drama, based on current productions on the London stage. Special attention will be given to the social issues addressed by the plays, as well as the theatrical conventions developed by playwrights and actors both on the fringe and in mainstream West End theatres.
Weekly visits to a variety of productions at London theatres are included as an essential element of this course.
Please note: the above information is subject to change.
SUMMER PROGRAM 2008:
SESSION 1 – MONDAY, JUNE 9 –
FRIDAY, JULY 18
Martin Postle,
Assistant Director for Academic Activities, Paul Mellon Centre
During the period from the accession of King George I in 1714 to the death of King George IV in 1830, a complete transformation took place in the artistic climate of Britain. This resulted in British art dramatically expanding its boundaries, reflecting the lives and interests of a wide spectrum of society, both at home and abroad. A number of the native artists who came to the forefront, including William Hogarth, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough, George Stubbs, J.M.W. Turner, and John Constable, form the focus of this course. The relative contribution of these figures will be considered, not in a monographic approach, but rather through their contribution to the evolution of certain genres, such as landscape and portraiture, and within the wider context of the political and cultural history of the period. London will be the focus of the course, facilitated by visits to art galleries and museums. There will also be an accompanied three-day field trip centered upon the city of Bath.
Andrew Sanders, Department of English Studies, Durham University (retired)
English comic fiction is scarcely a neglected genre but it is one that may be said to have been generally misunderstood and critically ill-defined. The variety and innovation of purely ‘comic’ fiction has tended to be under-esteemed in comparison to the more accepted notion that novels can best be defined as ‘realistic’ or psychologically ‘true to life’. This course will consider novels written over a period of some two hundred years and will explore them in an historical and literary context. It will look briefly at Classical theory and at the traditions of comic writing that were influenced by the dramatic examples of Shakespeare and Jonson. It will deal with the idea of ‘romantic comedy’ (stemming from Shakespeare) and balance it with examples of predominantly ‘satiric’ or ‘moral’ comedy (stemming both from Jonson and from the paintings and etchings of Hogarth) and it will look at the idea and structural significance of the ‘happy ending’. It will attempt to explore the influence of Fielding on Dickens and Thackeray and to explore the distinctions between an early Dickens novel and a more ‘realistic’ later one. It will also attempt to distinguish between the satiric comedy perfected by Jane Austen and the very different twentieth-century acerbic variety employed by Evelyn Waugh. As the course develops students will encounter a variety of texts which demonstrate the potential of comedy to be both classically ‘ordered’ and splendidly disordered, both ‘realistic’ and inventively exaggerated. It will ask questions about ‘Englishness’ and about the nature and role of both wit and humour in comedy, and, in the case of the Alice books, consider the overlap with surrealism. It will attempt to see the vibrant and flexible line of comic writing as drawing from a long and fruitful tradition, indeed from a ‘Great Tradition’ which is not that of F.R. Leavis but which is none the less integral to the history of fiction in England.
Why did England develop an empire in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries? What effect did that empire have on England? To what extent was the empire British rather than English? How did that early modern empire differ from classical empires? How did it differ from the contemporary Spanish, Portuguese, Ottoman, and Dutch empires? Why did that empire appear to collapse in the 1770s and 1780s? These are some the basic questions that this course will seek to address. The course will be based on primary materials – readings from primary sources and visits to important sites in and around London. Topics to be discussed will include the impact that imperial products like sugar, coffee, and tea had on English society, examining whether Ireland and Scotland are best understood as English colonies in the early modern period, the impact the empire had on English/British politics, the ways in which the empire was depicted on stage and in images, the strategic implications of imperial competition, and the ways in which London was experienced as an imperial city by people like Benjamin Franklin and James Boswell. No previous knowledge of British history is expected.
MONUMENTS AND MEMORY 1600-1945 (BRST 439c) Dr. Roger Bowdler, Head of Designation, English Heritage, London
History is made manifest through monuments. Through sculpture, art and architecture, patrons sought to perpetuate memory of illustrious ancestors and past achievements. In so doing, they created some of the highest achievements of English Baroque and Neoclassicism. This broad survey course looks at ways of remembering the past in London and beyond, from kings to citizens, famous commanders to the common soldier, and statesmen to artists. From the first hesitant post-Reformation steps of the 17th century, to the assertive memorials of the Empire at its zenith under Queen Victoria, the story of England's exploration of the art of remembrance has led to some of the most moving of all forms of public art.
This course will include visits to Westminster Abbey and St Paul's Cathedral, the finest depositories of sculpture in Britain; to great institutions like Greenwich Hospital, and great houses like Blenheim Palace; and grand public spaces like Whitehall; as well as to humbler spaces and little-known churches. Many of England's leading designers, from Sir Christopher Wren to Sir Edwin Lutyens, as well as leading sculptors, were involved in monumental design, and their works were internationally admired. Through a combination of site visits and classes, including a field trip across England, we will study a full range of monuments and memorials from the 17th century to the present day.
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