MO5905
Politics, Literature and the Reformation: Sir Thomas More
2019-2020
40
20
SCQF level 11
Full Year
Academic year(s): 2019-2020
SCOTCAT credits : 40
ECTS credits : 20
Level : SCQF level 11
Semester: Full Year
Planned timetable:
This module will investigate the life, writings and career of Sir Thomas More. Particular attention will be paid to More's role as a European humanist, King's councillor and politician and leading participant in the anti-Lutheran campaign of the early Reformation. The sources for his career and biography (including the early 'Lives' of Roper, Harpsfield and Stapleton, and More's own letters) will be subjected to particular scrutiny: many of the so-called 'primary sources' were rhetorically contrived or manipulated shortly after his death, or even in his later lifetime, by those who believed that his execution by Henry VIII would bring him and the cause for which he died an inextinguishable fame and reputation. This is overwhelmingly a source-based course.