The Medieval to Renaissance MA at UCC explores the full variety and contexts of writing from Britain and Ireland across the period circa 700 to circa 1700. This one-year, intensive taught graduate course is designed to provide you with a greater awareness of the conceptual and critical issues involved in the study of Old, Middle and Renaissance English; some of the historical and cultural contexts that the study of this period involves, and also some sense of how early writing has been received, transmitted, and transformed in modern texts and media. Modern writers and filmmakers have a fascination with the medieval and early modern that goes far beyond rewritings of Shakespeare, or star-studded movie versions of his plays, and this course also aims to alert you to some of these recent cultural approaches.

The UCC School of English's Medieval and Renaissance MA is unique in Ireland for offering students the earliest English writing (Anglo-Saxon or Old English and Old Norse) in addition to later medieval and Renaissance English. The programme emphasises the continuities between medieval and Renaissance writing, investigates the beginnings of Anglo-Irish writing, and engages closely with an English Renaissance poet who lived and worked in Cork in the 16th century, and produced his most significant work there: Edmund Spenser.

The course also lays the foundation of study at higher degree level. It introduces the subject-specific skills that are required (use of databases, bibliographies, palaeography, codicology, analysis of the physical composition of printed texts), as well as developing generic skills (writing, referencing, presentation skills) that will be useful as you embark on a scholarly project or career.

For more information on the course, please visit the website: http://www.ucc.ie/en/cke31/