ENGL 226
The Irish Literary Revival
Last Offered Spring 2019
Division I Writing Skills
This course is not offered in the current catalog

Class Details

This course will focus on the Irish Literary Revival of c.1885-1920, during which Irish literature in the English language became firmly established as a canon clearly separate from the English tradition, and writers such as W.B. Yeats and James Joyce achieved international renown. Readings will include drama, poetry, fiction and non-fiction prose by Yeats, J.M. Synge, Joyce, George Moore, George Bernard Shaw, Lady Gregory, Douglas Hyde, Sean O’Casey and others. We will foreground key fault-lines of the period: competing visions of what constituted “authentic” Irish identity; debate over the propriety of writing in English, drawing on British literary traditions, or seeking a non-Irish audience; the work of “self-exiles” such as Shaw and Joyce, versus that of writers who stayed in Ireland; and the long-entrenched political tensions between Catholics and Protestants, and Unionists and Nationalists. Throughout, we will consider the functions and efficacy of literature in promoting cultural or political change. The course will conclude by considering the extraordinary vitality of post-independence and contemporary Irish literary culture, with readings of work by Seamus Heaney, Colm Toíbín, Anne Enright and Martin McDonagh, and discussion of recent Irish film. Key considerations here will be the ways traditional notions of Irish Nationalism and national identity have been revised or abandoned under the impact of independence, economic prosperity and globalization, contemporary sexual politics and other forms of change.
The Class: Format: seminar
Limit: 19
Expected: 19
Class#: 3645
Grading: no pass/fail option, no fifth course option
Requirements/Evaluation: four 4+ page papers, and several shorter writings assignments; class participation
Prerequisites: a 100-level ENGL course, or a score of 5 on the AP English Literature exam, or a score of 6 or 7 on the Higher Level IB English exam
Enrollment Preferences: English majors
Distributions: Division I Writing Skills
Attributes: ENGL 200-level Gateway Courses
ENGL Literary Histories B
ENGL Literary Histories C

Class Grid

Updated 5:27 am

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