Course module - Contemporary Irish Poetry and Fiction
Code : ENGL30941 Credit rating: 20 Semester : 1
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Aims |
Objectives |
Assessment |
Information
|
Course Content |
Course Materials |
Tutors |
Timetable |
Teaching Methods |
Keywords
Aims
- To introduce students to the formal, thematic and stylistic diversity of contemporary Irish poetry and fiction in its literary and historical contexts;
- To explore the ways in which contemporary Irish poets and novelists have interrogated personal, communal and national identities in different contexts;
- To develop students’ understanding of the varieties of poetic and novelistic response to issues such as history, gender, nationalism, migration and sexuality;
- To examine the role of the Irish writer in re-imagining societies undergoing profound social, cultural and economic change;
- To prepare students for advanced research in the subject area through the development of research, analytical, expressive and rhetorical skills.
Objectives (Learning Outcomes)
On completion of the course, successful students should be able to demonstrate:
- An effective understanding of the contexts, range and diversity of contemporary Irish poetry and fiction;
- Evidence of the above in written work appropriate to this level;
- A critical appreciation of the characteristic modes, styles and thematic preoccupations of contemporary Irish poets and novelists;
- An informed awareness of the diversity of critical and theoretical approaches to the study of contemporary Irish poetry and fiction;
- Oral and written analytical skills that might prepare them for further study and research in the area.
Assessment
One 2-hour seen written examination (80%); one 1 hour online multiple choice examination (20%)
The use of dictionaries in the examination is prohibited. This rule applies to all categories of students, including all Visiting Students.
Information
THIS COURSE IS NOT AVAILABLE AS FREE CHOICE.
Course Content
The course explores the themes, styles and narrative strategies of some of the most important poets and novelists writing in contemporary Ireland. The period since the 1980s has proved to be a particularly rich and fascinating one for Irish poetry and fiction, during which the role of the writer has assumed fresh significance in a context of seismic social and political change. This course traces the concerns that have emerged as central to contemporary Irish poetry and fiction and explores how poets and novelists have engaged with major political, social and cultural issues, such as the horrors of political violence in the North of Ireland; the fraught relationship between the past and the present; changing attitudes to gender, religion and sexuality; the rise of multiculturalism and the erosion of traditional social and political value systems. Throughout the course, students will be encouraged to consider contemporary Irish poetry and fiction in relation to broader literary and critical theories, with particular emphasis on postmodernist, postcolonialist and post-feminist perspectives. Writers examined include: Sebastian Barry, Anne Enright, Seamus Heaney, Patrick McCabe and John McGahern.
Course Materials
Tutor(s)
Harte, Dr Liam
Timetable
PROVISIONAL TIMETABLE FOR 2013-2014
Lecture: Monday 12-1
Seminars:
Group 1: Tuesday 12-2
Group 2: Tuesday 2-4
Teaching Methods
One one-hour lecture followed by one two-hour seminar per week.
Preliminary reading
Primary:
Barry, Sebastian. A Long Long Way (Faber, 2005).
Enright, Anne. The Gathering (Jonathan Cape, 2007).
McCabe, Patrick. The Butcher Boy (Picador, 1992).
McGahern, John. Amongst Women (Faber, 1990).
Trevor, William. Felicia's Journey (Penguin, 1994).
Wilson, Robert McLiam. Ripley Bogle (Picador, 1989).
Secondary:
I can strongly recommend, as background reading, Part IV (pp. 315-429) of Terence Brown's Ireland: A Social and Cultural History, 1922-2002 (Harper Perennial, 2004), which provides a concise analysis of the literary, social and cultural history of contemporary Ireland. For those of you who wish to delve deeper, I suggest you read the eighth and final chapter of Diarmaid Ferriter's The Transformation of Ireland, 1900-2000 (Profile Books, 2005), which ideals with developments during the 1970-2000 period. A full bibliographical guide will be made available on Blackboard when the course begins. This will include a guide to articles and essays on the individual works and authors.