Stolen Stories: Texts Rewriting Texts

Module code: EN7403

Some of the most innovative, provocative literature has come from authors rewriting and recreating famous literary works, from unauthorized spinoffs to feminist and postcolonial authors ‘writing back’ to canonical texts. In this module you will read pairs of literary works, exploring ideas of authorship, creation and resistance. The module will place in dialogue texts such as Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales (c.1390) and Patience Agbabi’s Telling Tales (2014), or Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn (1884) and Percival Everett’s James (2024). You will explore textual conversations across chronological and national boundaries, considering various ways in which literary rewritings offer fresh insights into and new ways of engaging with earlier texts.