Students read selected drama produced in England between 1586 and 1630, together with shorter poems from the same period. Recent theoretical approaches to the literature are investigated and applied as appropriate. Attention is paid to the cultural context of the poetry, the social context of the plays and to relevant modes of theatrical production. Representative Elizabethan and Jacobean plays include Marlowe's Dr Faustus , Heywood's A Woman Killed with Kindness , Beaumont's The Knight of the Burning Pestle , Webster's The Duchess of Malfi and Middleton's The Changeling . The poets selected for study are Marlowe, Spenser, Sidney, Jonson and Donne.