English 306-001
Survey of Irish Literature
Instr: Liddy, James
Office: CRT 517; 229-5441
e-mail: liddy@uwm.edu
Office hours: TR; 3:00-4:00pm and by appointment
Course Information: MW; 12:30-1:45pm; AUP 189
Course Description
This course is an overview of the modern literature of Ireland in English. The time period is from the 19th century to the present. The specific stylistic and psychological models of English and Gaelic will be noted, as will the colonial/post-colonial condition of Ireland. The course will conclude with a section on drama.
More than four unexcused absences will affect the final grade; incompletes are discouraged. There will be a conference, exercises, and a term paper of ten pages due on December 3. A class report is a possibility. There will be four three-page response papers on Yeats, Moore, Merriman, and Bowen due on September 24, October 8, October 22, and November 5 respectively. There will be a final exam on the remaining texts on December 5 in the classroom. Assuming attendance is in order, grades will be: 10 page paper 25%, exam 25%, response papers 25%, discussion, report and exercises 25%.
Academic work will also be graded according to the complexity, subtlety, clarity and originality of the writing and ideas. For the ten page paper, print sources are required in addition to online sources; all sources must be cited. Critical treatment of Irish literature should not be identical to that applied to other literatures in English: there should be an Irish dimension. Any creative projects should be cleared with the Instructor. And let there be fun, that Celtic diversion. We shall wet the shamrock and cut green birthday cakes; green fireworks will rise in the sky.
Order of Texts:
W. B. Yeats, Easter 1916 and Other Poems
George Moore, Confessions of a Young Man
Brian Merriman, The Midnight Court
Elizabeth Bowen, The World of Love
Eugene O'Neill, The Iceman Cometh
Brian Friel, Selected Plays
Marina Carr, Plays 1
Brendan Behan, The Complete Plays
(One or two of the above texts will be copies made by the Instructor)
