Senior Freshman Option HT 2014
Twentieth-Century Women’s Fiction
(12x lectures)
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the module successful students will:
-
be able to demonstrate detailed understanding of key
themes in twentieth-century fiction by women
-
show familiarity with the concept of a female literary tradition
-
be able to relate the texts to their historical and cultural
contexts
-
be able to analyse a range of narrative strategies used by
these writers (modernist, realist, postmodernist etc)
-
be conversant with selected feminist and gender theories
and be able to apply those theories to a critical reading of the
texts, where appropriate
Heather Ingman.
Senior Freshman Option HT 2014
Twentieth-Century Women’s Fiction
(12x lectures)
This course looks at a range of twentieth-century novels and short
stories by women writers, beginning with Rose Macaulay’s First World
War novel, Non-Combatants and Others and continuing through the
decades to include such writers as Virginia Woolf (Mrs Dalloway), Jean
Rhys (Voyage in the Dark), Angela Carter (The Bloody Chamber) and
Jeanette Winterson (Written on the Body). The course will set the
fiction in its historical and cultural context and consider questions both
of theme and style in an endeavour to locate a female practice of
writing. There will also be a chance to discuss the texts in the light of
gender theory.
For further information about this course, e mail: ingmanh@tcd.ie
Heather Ingman.
Reading List:
Week One: Fin de siecle women writers. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The
Yellow Wall-paper (1892). On-line or Oxford World’s Classics.
2 Rose Macaulay, Non-Combatants and Others (1916). On-line or any
edition.
3 Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway (1925). Penguin.
4. Jean Rhys, Voyage in the Dark (1934). Penguin.
5. Rosamond Lehmann, The Weather in the Streets (1936). Virago.
6. Iris Murdoch, The Bell (1958). Penguin.
7. Study Week
8. Margaret Drabble, The Millstone (1965). Penguin.
9. Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber (1979). Vintage.
10. Muriel Spark, Loitering with Intent (1981). Virago.
11. Jeanette Winterson, Written on the Body (1992). Vintage.
12. Recap
Background Reading (to be used selectively)
Joannou, Maroula (ed), The History of British Women’s Writing, 19201945 (Palgrave, 2013).
Gilbert, S. and Gubar. S. No Man’s Land: The Place of the Woman
Writer in the Twentieth Century (1989).
Head, Dominic, Cambridge Introduction to Modern British Fiction 19502000 (2002).
Humble, Nicola, The Feminine Middlebrow Novel, 1920s to 1950s
(2001).
Makinen, Merja, Feminist Popular Fiction (2001).
Maslen, Elizabeth, Political and Social Issues in British Women’s
Fiction 1928-68 (2001).
Showalter, Elaine A Literature of their Own. British Women Novelists
from Brontë to Lessing (1982).
Trodd, Anthea, Women’s Writing in English: Britain 1900-1945 (1998).
Watkins, Susan, Twentieth-Century Women Novelists: feminist theory
into practice (2001).
Wisker, Gina, It’s my Party: Reading Twentieth-Century Women’s
Writing (1994).