English 125 - Winter, 2014

Topics in Irish Literature

Class Information

Instructor: Dobbins, Gregory
Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Location: 146 Olson

Description

Despite its small size, history of political repression and natural disaster, relative geopolitical insignificance on the fringes of Western Europe, Ireland has made a tremendous contribution to global literature that belies its apparent marginality. This is especially true from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present day. One hundred years ago, writers like W.B. Yeats, James Joyce, and Samuel Beckett made a crucial impact upon the emergence of Modernism. In more recent years, works by writers like Seamus Heaney, John Banville, and Paul Muldoon have continued to make up an important part of contemporary world literature in the English language. This course serves to provide an introduction to both canonical and lesser known works of modern Irish literature.

The course will be made up of two units. In the first part of the quarter, we will read some representative works of writers associated with both the Irish Literary Revival and High Modernism. In the second half of the quarter, we will look at some notable works written by Irish writers that were published in the last twenty years. In order to have a thematic rubric that will enable a comparison between both sets of writers, we will consider the uses Irish writers make of the motif of youth and young adulthood throughout the hundred year long period we will be looking at. It is my hypothesis that the theme of youth enables both earlier and and later Irish writers to respond to the political and social history of Ireland as well as their respective inquiries into the formation of the individual subject. This course will seek to test that hypothesis, but will consider a wide variety of other issues specific to Irish history as well.

Grading

The course grade will be determined by two essays (5-7 pages each), a short writing assignment, a final exam, participation, and occasional quizzes.

The reading list below is tentative,but will draw from the authors and texts below. Novels will be available from the campus book store; shorter texts will be available on Smart Site.

Texts

Notes from a Coma, Mike McCormack
The Gathering, Anne Enright
The Butcher Boy, Patrick McCabe
Reading in the Dark, Seamus Deane
various poems, Seamus Heaney
"First Love", Samuel Beckett
The Last September, Elizabeth Bowen
The Playboy of the Western World, JM Synge
Cathleen ni Houlihan; various poems, W.B. Yeats
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce