University of Ulster, Faculty of Arts, School of Languages and Literature

ENG106C2A Literature and Society in Ireland: An Introduction

MODULE TITLE Literature and Society in Ireland: an Introduction

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CO-ORDINATORDr.Éamonn Ó Ciardha

TEACHING STAFF RESPONSIBLE FOR MODULE DELIVERY:

Dr.Éamonn Ó Ciardha

Email: e.ociardha(at)mx.uni-saarland.de

Phone: +49 (0)681-302-70440

Office: C5 3, room 4.10

INTRODUCTORY DESCRIPTION AND RATIONALE

This module offers an introduction to the history of Irish literature in English in its social, cultural and political context, involving close literary study of selected texts by some of the most representative Irish writers in English.

The module is offered as part of the Irish Literature in English Minor strand, and links well with modules on Twentieth-century Literature in years 2 and 3; and, also, with related modules in History and Irish Studies.

AIMS

1.To introduce students to key themes and patterns in Irish writing in English.
2.To introduce students to central debates about the nature and politics of Irish writing, gaining an understanding of historical and cultural frameworks.
3.To appreciate the formal and aesthetic qualities of key Irish texts, gaining an understanding of genre, and of the relationship between English and Irish literary history.
  1. To develop students’ skills of critical analysis, argument and formal academic writing
  2. To encourage students to engage with alternative viewpoints and to negotiate them through constructive critical discussion
  3. To help students to adapt to independent patterns of study characteristic of third-level education

LEARNING OUTCOMES

On completion of the module, you should be able to:

  1. situate Irish literature in its historical and social context;
  2. comprehend the critical debates and political arguments surrounding modern Irish literature;
  3. appreciate the range of forms and styles of Irish writing in English, understand how these relate to social contexts, and make connections between differing genres and texts.

You will also have developed significant transferable skills, including:

  1. the capacity to take on complex ideas and information;
  2. the ability to present structured and informed arguments, both orally and on paper;
  3. the experience of organizing a personal timetable and workload, delivering written work in a presentable fashion to deadlines.

LEARNING AND TEACHING METHODS

Students will attend 1, 90 minute lecture per week. The lectures will strive to deal with all the set texts in a comprehensive way, identifying certain key areas of inquiry, suggesting possible directions of critical investigation, and signalling areas of controversy. Suggestions for further reading and analysis should subsequently be pursued in seminars, and during private study.

In addition to lectures and seminars, students are also expected to undertake an extensive programme of private reading and study, during which they are expected to read the

set texts, study background literature and secondary criticism, prepare for seminars, and produce written work for assessment. This work should by definition be primarily self-directed, with help and guidance from module staff(in the first instance from the seminar tutor).

ASSESSMENT

The assessment consists of a 90 minute end-of-semester test, consisting of approximately a dozen questions, each carrying the same weight and each focusing on key aspects of early modern Irish History and historiography. Students are expected to write an essay in response to two questions of their choice.

TEACHING SCHEDULE

Lecture 1

Introduction

Lecture 2

Irish Literature in Irish

Lecture 3

Edmund Spenser I

Lecture 4

Jonathan Swift

Lecture 5

Maria Edgeworth, Castle Rackrent (I)

Lecture 6

James Clarence Mangan and Thomas David, Selected Poems

Lecture 7

Sheridan Le Fanu, In a Glass Darkly

Lecture 8

Pillars of Independence: John Mitchel and P. H. Pearse

Lecture 9

W. B. Yeats, Selected Poems (I) and Cathleen Ni Houlihan

Lecture 10

J. M. Synge, The Playboy of the Western World

Lecture 11

George Bernard Shaw, John Bull’s Other Island

Lecture 12

James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (I)

Lecture 13

James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (II)

Lecture 14

W. B. Yeats, Selected Poems (II)

Lecture 15

Kate O’Brien, The Ante-Room

Lecture 16

Louis MacNeice

Lecture 17

Patrick Kavanagh

Lecture 18

Seamus Heaney

Lecture 19

Seamus Heaney

Lecture 20

Robert MacLiam Wilson, Eureka Street(I)

Lecture 21

Recap

Lecture 22

Recap

ESSENTIAL READING

Crotty, Patrick (ed.), Modern Irish Poetry (Belfast: The Blackstaff Press, 1995)*

Edgeworth, Maria, Castle Rackrent (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).

Harrington, J. P. (ed.), Modern Irish Drama (New York: Norton, 1991).

Joyce, James, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (London: Penguin, 2004).

Le Fanu, Sheridan, In a GlassDarkly (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).

Mangan, James Clarence, Poems, ed. David Wheatley(The Gallery Press, 2003).

O’Brien, Kate, The Ante-Room (London: Virago, 1995).

Wilson, Robert McLiam, Eureka Street(London: Minerva, 1996).

Yeats, W. B., Selected Poetry, ed. Timothy Webb (London: Penguin, 2000).

*Cathleen Ni Houlihan (Lecture 8), The Playboy of the Western World (Lecture 9), and John Bull’s Other Island (Lecture 10) are all included in Harrington, J. P. (ed.), Modern Irish Drama.

*The lectures on Louis MacNeice (Lecture 17), Patrick Kavanagh (Lecture 18), Seamus Heaney (Lecture 19), Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill and Paula Meehan (Lecture 20) will all focus on poems included in Crotty, Patrick (ed.), Modern Irish Poetry.

RECOMMENDED READING

Bourke, Angela, et al (eds.) The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing Volumes IV and V: IrishWomen's Writing and Traditions (Cork: Cork University Press, 2002).

Boyce, D. George, Nationalism in Ireland, 3rd edn., (London: Routledge, 1995).

Boyce, D. George, and O’Day, Alan (eds.), The Making of Modern Irish History: Revisionism and the Revisionist Controversy (London: Routledge, 1996).

Brown, Terence, Ireland: a Social and Cultural History, 1922-1985, 2nd edn., (London: Fontana, 1985).

Cairns, David, and Richards, Sean, Writing Ireland: Colonialism, Nationalism and Culture (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988).

Connolly, S. J. (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Irish History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).

Corcoran, Neil, After Yeats and Joyce (Oxford, OUP, 1997).

Deane, Seamus, Celtic Revivals: Essays in Modern Irish Literature, 1880-1980 (London: Faber, 1985).

Deane, Seamus, A Short History of Irish Literature (London: Hutchinson, 1986).

Deane, Seamus, et al (eds.), The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, 3 vols. (Derry: Field Day, 1991).

Deane, Seamus, Strange Country: Modernity and Nationhood in Irish Writing Since 1790 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1997).

Eagleton, Terence, Heathcliff and the Great Hunger: Studies in Irish Culture (London: Verso, 1995).

Harte, Liam and Parker, Michael (eds), Contemporary Irish Fiction: Themes, Tropes and Theories (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000).

Hutchinson, John, The Dynamics of Cultural Nationalism: The Gaelic Revival and the Creation of the Irish Nation State (London: Allen & Unwin, 1987).

Kennedy-Andrews, Elmer, Modern Irish Fiction (Colin Smythe, 2005).

Kiberd, Declan, Inventing Ireland: The Literature of the Modern Nation (London: Jonathan Cape, 1995).

Kiberd, Declan, The Irish Writer and the World (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2005).

Lyons, F. S. L., Ireland Since the Famine (London: Fontana, 1985).

Lyons, F. S. L., Culture and Anarchy in Ireland, 1890-1939 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982).

MacDonagh, Thomas, Literature in Ireland: Studies in Irish and Anglo-Irish Literature (London: Fisher Unwin, 1918).

Morash, Christopher, A History of Irish Theatre 1601-2000 (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2002).

Peach, Linden, The Contemporary Irish Novel (Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).

Vance, Norman, Irish Literature: A Social History (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990).

Vance, Norman, Irish Literature Since 1800 (London: Longman, 2002).

Watson, George, Irish Identity and the Irish Literary Revival: Synge, Yeats, Joyce and O’Casey (London: Croom Helm, 1979).

Welch, Robert, Changing States: Transformations in Modern Irish Writing (London: Routledge, 1992).

Welch, Robert (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Irish Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).

Wills, Clair, Improprieties. Politics and sexuality in Northern Irish Poetry (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1993).

Journals

Students should also keep themselves informed of new dissertations, books, articles and other publications through Eighteenth-century Ireland, Éire-Ireland, Field Day Review, History Ireland, Historical Journal, Irish Ecclesiastical Record, Irish Economic and Social History, Irish Historical Studies, Irish Sword, Studia Hibernica, and other relevant journals.

Websites

IMPORTANT

I would also refer students to an extensive collection of articles, review articles, books and edited collections in the Clix files for this course, as well as the English subject library’s reserve reading-room

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