English 285-001
Modern Irish Language and Literature
Instr: Walczyk, Nancy
Office: CRT 502; 229-3302
e-mail: nwalczyk@uwm.edu
Office hours: TBA
Course Information: TR; 2:00-3:15pm; LAP 257
Course Description
In this course, we will explore the literature of the "Hidden Ireland," texts written in modern Irish Gaelic and translated into English. No knowledge of Irish is necessary for this course, but some bilingual texts will be used so students of the Irish language can practice their reading and translating skills.
The lore of Gaelic Ireland became a topic of interest to European folklorists and linguists at the beginning of the 19th century. It contributed to the development of Irish cultural nationalism in the middle of the 19th century, and by the end of that century, it inspired the Irish Literary Renaissance of Yeats and other writers. Many writers in today's Ireland choose to continue the tradition of publishing their work in Irish.
The course will cover writing in modern Irish from the 17th to the 20th centuries. We will begin by looking at "The Poems of the Dispossessed" of the 17th century, the calamitous period when the Gaelic hierarchy collapsed, and its passing was lamented by Gaelic poets. We will discuss what happened to literature in Irish in the 18th and 19th centuries, and how its often predicted death was belied. We'll examine the revival of interest in the Irish language and its literature in the mid-19th century, in particular the autobiographical writing of the Aran and Blasket Islanders Peig Sayers, Tomás O Criothain, and Maurice O'Sullivan. We will also examine the powerful short fiction and poetry of such writers as Liam O'Flaherty and Máirtín Ó Cadhain in the early 20th century, and the contemporary poetry of Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill and Cathal Ó Searcaigh.
