KING’S COLLEGE LONDON

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
2024-25

End-of-Semester Coursework

4AAE0205: READING PAST, READING PRESENT

End-of-semester coursework submission deadline: 24 April 2025 before 2.00pm

Work to be submitted electronically, via KEATS, with your CANDIDATE NUMBER as

the submission title.

Submission Instructions
 You must complete a coursework coversheet, which can be found on the
Submitting Assessments Online page, and include this as the first page of
your coursework document.
 For departmental guidelines on presentation see the Assessment section of
our Student Handbook.
 For advice on what to do if you need to apply for an extension see the
Extensions & Missed Assessment page.

Feedback
 Coursework is marked in accordance with the College Marking Framework.
 Feedback will be made available via KEATS four weeks from the submission
deadline.

READING PAST, READING PRESENT PORTFOLIO ASSESSMENT

Complete one task each week and bring it to seminar as a basis for
discussions. You should write around 300-350 words each week. There is a
prompt below for each week of the course. Or you can choose to
substitute one of the more ‘creative’ tasks that appear at the end for any
given week. Each response should include detailed reference to a text
from the module (if you want to choose to answer on a text from a
different week of the course that is fine).

At the end of the module, you will choose three of your pieces and revise
them into mini-essays. You may wish to consult your seminar tutor in
office hours about this, or for feedback on your drafts. You will then submit
these 3 pieces as a portfolio (totalling no more than 1000 words; each
essay should be between 300-350 words) via KEATS for the coursework
deadline in May. Your final portfolio should contain at least two of the
weekly prompts numbered below but may also include one more creative
task.

If you have any doubts or concerns about the assessment, please raise
them with your seminar leader, in the first instance. If you remain unsure,

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do get in touch with me on [email protected] or book to see
me in my office hours.

WEEK 1

“I can conjecture about my obsession with the sonnet. I mean, I’m

educated in the sonnet. It’s been pushed down my throat the entirety of
my life. There is something in me that doesn’t like that, and doesn’t trust
that, because I’m a rebellious human being” (Jericho Brown)

How does one of the texts studied on this module engage ‘rebelliously’
with an inherited literary form or genre?

WEEK 2

“Sappho in Long Ago is a created poet, a presence that is moving,

confessional, ‘autobiographical’, powerful—and illusory.” (O’Gorman)

With reference to one work from the module, how would you qualify the
‘presence’ of an earlier text, author or figure within it?

WEEK 3

To have gathered from the air a live tradition

or from a fine old eye the unconquered flame
This is not vanity.
(Ezra Pound, Canto 81)

What makes a tradition ‘live’? Answer with reference to one of the texts
studied on this module.

WEEK 4

“Why all this fuss and bother about the mystery of the unconscious? What
about the mystery of the conscious? What do they know about that?”
(James Joyce)

With reference to one text taught on the module, how is a mythic,

religious or historical figure used to explore EITHER a) the workings of the
mind OR b) the development of the self?

WEEK 5

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“Mr Joyce is a clever novelist, but we feel he would really be at his best in
a treaty on drains.” (‘A Study in Garbage’, unsigned review of Portrait,
1917)

How might one of the texts on this module be read as a study in garbage
or a treatise on drains?

WEEK 7

“The process of through is ongoing.” (Miller Oberman, ‘On Trans’).

How does one of the texts studied on this course represent or embody
translation?

WEEK 8

Three kings there are come riding from afar:

Melchior, Caspar and black Balthasar.
They bring a poncho white and warm,
They bring Him honey and cakes Christmas morn.
(Ariel Ramirez, ‘Los Reyes Magos’)

With reference to one text on the module, analyse its embedding of a

traditional story in a specific cultural context.

WEEK 9

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
(Ian Hamilton Finlay, ‘Arcady’, 1966)

Write a 300-350-word response to ONE of the ‘Questions on the poem’

which Finlay attached to ‘Arcady’ (p. 147 of the ‘Concrete Poems’ pdf).

WEEK 10

How useful is the concept of resistance for thinking about the relation
between intertexts? Discuss with reference to one week’s materials.

WEEK 11

“Home for me has always been a place of unbelonging. This is the strange
yet all-too-familiar exile of living in the Caribbean, of being a part of the
African diaspora: belonging in two places and no place at all.” (Safiya
Sinclair)

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How does one of the texts we have studied explore ideas of home OR
exile, or both?

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ALTERNATIVE CREATIVE RESPONSES

You can choose to complete as many of these as you like, substituting

them instead of the weekly tasks above. Your final portfolio should include
no more than one of these – and does not have to include any.

1. Tell us about an object from the past that still has meaning for you
in the present. This might be something that has been passed down
to you, or something you’ve found for yourself. It could be a story,
ritual, saying or song, for instance, or a physical object of any kind.
Why does it matter to you? Does it have the same meaning for you
that it had for those it belonged to originally?
2. Find a piece of music or song that alludes to a mythical precursor –
this might be from any cultural or religious tradition. How does the
music evoke the story? Why does it do so?
3. Write a creative imitation of any text studied in this course. Remake
that text in your own voice and using your own choice of form. Write
a 300-350 word critical reflection on what you learned from doing
this (you will be assessed on the critical reflection, not the imitation
but please submit both).
4. Write a short commentary (no more than 300-350 words) on a film,
painting, photograph or other visual artwork that is based on a story
from an earlier tradition and analyse how it adapts the original.
5. Imagine a conversation between two of the figures encountered in
different texts on this course. What would they talk about? Would
they get on? Would they argue? How would their views differ? What
would they eat and drink together? Where would they go? Write
down this conversation. (300-350 words)
6. Choose a passage from one of the texts we’ve studied on the
module (a paragraph, if a prose work, 10-15 lines, if poetry) and
rewrite it in the style of another text studied in a different week.
Write 300-350 words of critical reflection on what you learned from
doing this (you will be assessed on the critical reflection, not the
imitation, but please submit both).