Instr:                  James Liddy
Office:               CRT 517,   229-5441, Home phone 962-6165 (no early calls)
e-mail:                NONE
Office hours:    R 3:00-5:00, and by appointment

Course Information:                   TR    12:30pm-1:45pm;       CRT 118
 

Course Description

Order of Texts:
W.B.Yeats, Collected Poems
Patrick Kavanagh, Selected Poems
Eavan Boland, Outside History
W.B. Yeats, Autobiographies
Austin Clarke, Echo at Coole
Medb McGuckian, Shemalier
Samuel Beckett, Rockaby

Major Yeats critics to be consulted include Harold Bloom, Elizabeth Butler Cullingford,  Seamus Deane, Richard Ellman, Anne Fogarty, Thomas Kinsella, T.R. Henn, and many others. Aspects of Yeats that will be considered are the quality of his love poetry, his establishing of a sexual persona; the recreation of Irish myth, folklore, and history; his interest in mystical tradition and emergence as a spiritual writer; the dedication to style and poetic prose; an adherence to Irish nationalism and the shaping of it; the ability to sustain a myth of a ''family'' of friends; his leadership of the Modernist movement in Literature, the adaption of Jungian archetype in poetry, etc.  The reach and influence is enormous; the course will be partly a hunting for and classifying of his effect on other writers  Students are referred to the letters of Yeats and his many biographers. Students are also referred to John Unterecker, A Guide to W.B. Yeats. (Bibliography will be available.)

Students will write two papers of six pages minimum on topics to be decided by them in consultation with the instructor, the Irish dimensions of the texts should not be overlooked. (Papers due on October 17 and December 5.)  Students will also present a class report on an aspect of Irish poetry in the period 1900 to the present, 15 minutes in length with discussion.  There will be a midterm exam on October 31 and a final on the day indicated in the Schedule of Classes.  A student will not be permitted more than four unexcused absences.  Late incompletes possible under exceptional circumstances. Internet information should be balanced by published sources. Assuming attendance is in order, grades will be divided between papers (50%), discussion including report (20%), exams (30%).