LMB AN113G3 Contemporary Literatures in English Seminar
2010 Autumn
Dr. Dolmányos Péter
Schedule
Seminar block 1. 2 October 2010
Introduction.
Contexts for contemporary literature. The concept of ’contemporary’.
Periods, trends and movements
Poetry: Precedents and influences. Philip Larkin
Seminar block 2. 16 October 2010
Poetry: Thom Gunn, Ted Hughes, Geoffrey Hill, John Montague, Seamus
Heaney, Derek Mahon, Tony Harrison.
Drama: Directions.
Seminar block 3. 10 October 2010
Drama. Anger and after – John Osborne. Absurd dimensions – Samuel
Bckett, Harold Pinter, Tom Stoppard. Irish drama – Brian Friel
Fiction: Major trends. ‘Angry’Young Men – Kingsley Amis, Alan Sillitoe,
John Wain, John Braine.
Seminar block 4. 20 November 2010
Fiction. Varieties of experimentalism – B.S. Johnson, Lawrence Durrell.
Fables – William Golding. Existentialism – Iris Murdoch. Postcolonial
dimensions – Doris Lessing. Metafiction (or not?) – John Fowles. New
’English’ voices – Salman Rushdie, Kazuo Ishiguro.
Required Readings:
Poetry:
Philip Larkin: ‘Mr Bleaney’, ‘The Whitsun Weddings’, ‘Church Going’, ‘Sad Steps’, ‘The
Importance of Elsewhere’, ‘To my Wife’
Thom Gunn: ‘My Sad Captains’, ‘The Annihilation of Nothing’, ‘Street Song’, ‘Tamer and
Hawk’
Ted Hughes: ‘The Thought-Fox’, ‘February 17th’, ‘Pike’, ‘A Childish Prank’
Geoffrey Hill: ‘The Guardians’, ‘Requiem for the Plantagenet Kings’, ‘Ovid in the Third
Reich’, ‘September Song’, Mercian Hymns: I, ‘Idylls of the King’ (from An Apology
for the Revival of Christian Architecture in England)
John Montague: ‘Like Dolmens Round My Childhood …’, ‘The Cage’, ‘Northern Express’
Seamus Heaney: ‘Bogland’, ‘Anahorish’, ‘The Tollund Man’, ‘Punishment’, ‘Casualty’,
‘Tollund’
Derek Mahon: ‘Glengormley’, ‘A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford’, ‘Heraclitus on Rivers’
Tony Harrison: ‘Them and [uz]’, ‘Timer’, ‘Punchline’
Drama – 3 plays from the list, to be specified during the course:
John Osborne: Look Back In Anger
Samuel Beckett: Waiting For Godot / All That Fall / Endgame
Harold Pinter: The Birthday Party / The Dumb Waiter / The Caretaker
LMB AN113G3 Contemporary Literatures in English Seminar
2010 Autumn
Dr. Dolmányos Péter
Tom Stoppard: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead / Travesties
Brian Friel: Translations / Making History
Novels – 5 novels from the list, to be specified during the course
Kingsley Amis: Lucky Jim / Take a Girl Like You
Alan Sillitoe: Saturday Night and Sunday Morning / The Loneliness of the Long-distance
Runner
John Wain: Hurry On Down / The Contenders
John Braine: Room at the Top / Life at the Top
B.S. Johnson: The Unfortunates
Lawrence Durrell: The Alexandria Quartet
William Golding: Lord of the Flies / Pincher Martin / Rites of Passage
Iris Murdoch: Under the Net
Doris Lessing: The Grass is Singing / The Golden Notebook
John Fowles: The Collector / The French Lieutenant’s Woman / The Magus / The Ebony
Tower
Salman Rushdie: Midnight’s Children / Shame
Kazuo Ishiguro: A Pale View of Hills / An Artist of the Floating World / The Remains of the
Day / When We Were Orphans
Criticism: works recommended for consultation
1. Acheson, James, 1991: The British and Irish Novel Since 1960. London: Macmillan.
2. Atkins, Douglas G. 1989: Practicing Theory and Reading Literature. Great Britain:
The University Press of Kentucky.
3. Ashcroft, Bill, Griffiths, Gareth, Tiffin, Helen eds. 1995: The Post-Colonial Studies
Reader. London and New York: Routledge.
4. Atkins, Douglas G., Morrow, Laura eds., 1989: Contemporary Literary Theory. USA:
Macmillan.
5. Bergonzi, Bernard, 1970: The Situation of the Novel. London: Macmillan.
6. Best, Steven and Kellner, Douglas, 1991: Postmodern Theory: Critical Interrogations.
New York: The Guilford Press.
7. Booth, Wayne, C. (1961) 1983: The Rhetoric of Fiction. Chicago and London: The
University of Chicago Press.
8. Bradbury, Malcolm, 1992: The Modern American Novel. Oxford and New York:
Penguin Books Ltd.
9. Bradbury, Malcolm, 1993: The Modern British Novel, London: Penguin Books.
10. Corcoran, Neil, 1993. English Poetry Since 1940. London: Longman.
11. Corcoran, Neil. 1997: After Yeats and Joyce Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. Corcoran, Neil, 1999: Poets of Modern Ireland Cardiff: University of Wales Press
13. Corcoran, Neil (ed.) 2007: The Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century English
Poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
14. Culler, Jonathan, 1982: On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism after Structuralism.
Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press.
15. Ellmann, Richard and Feidelson, Charles Jr., eds. 1965: The Modern Tradition:
Backgrounds of Modern Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
16. Gasiorek, Andrzej, 1995: Post War British Fiction: Realism and After. London, New
York, Sydney, Auckland: Edward Arnold.
17. Genette, Gérard, 1972: Narrative Discourse. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
18. Gindin, James, 1962: Post War British Fiction, New Accents and Attitudes. Berkeley
and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
19. Grant, Damian, 1999: Salman Rushdie. Plymouth: Northcote House Publishers Ltd.
20. Hawthorn, Jeremy, 1987: Unlocking the Text: Fundamental Issues in Literary Theory.
London, New York, Melbourne, Auckland: Edward Arnold.
21. Hirsch, David H., 1991: The Deconstruction of Literature: Criticism After Auschwitz.
LMB AN113G3 Contemporary Literatures in English Seminar
2010 Autumn
Dr. Dolmányos Péter
Hanover and London: Brown University Press.
22. Hoggart, Richard, 1957. The Uses of Literacy. Harmondsworth: Penguin
23. Hutcheon, Linda, (1988) 1992: A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction.
New York and London: Routledge.
24. Hutcheon, Linda 1980: Narcissistic Narrative: The Metafictional Paradox. N.Y and
London: Methuen.
25. Innes, Cristopher, 1992: Modern British Drama 1890-1990. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. Krieger, Murray ed., 1966: Northrop Frye in Modern Criticism. New
York and London: Columbia University Press.
26. Johnston, Dillon, 1997. Irish Poetry After Joyce. (2nd edition). Syracuse, N.Y.:
Syracuse University Press
27. King, Bruce, 2004: The Internationalization of English Literature. The Oxford
English Literary History volume 13. 1948 – 2000. Oxford: Oxford University Press
28. King, P. R., 1979: Nine Contemporary Poets: A Critical Introduction. London:
Methuen
29. Kristeva, Julia, 1989: Language The Unknown, London: Harvester.
30. Kristeva, Julia, 1978: Desire in Language. New York: Columbia University Press.
31. Kristeva, Julia, Toril, Moi ed. 1986: The Kristeva Reader. Oxford and Cambridge:
Blackwell.
32. Longley, Edna, 1986: Poetry in the Wars. Newcastle: Bloodaxe
33. Longley, Edna, 2000: Poetry and Posterity. Newcastle: Bloodaxe
34. Loomba, Ania, (1998) 2002: Colonialism l Postcolonialism. London and New York:
Routledge.
35. Marwick, Arthur, 1990 (1982): British Society Since 1945. Harmondsworth: Penguin
36. Matthews, Steven, 1997: Irish Poetry: Politics, History, Negotiation. The Evolving
Debate, 1969 to the Present. Basingstoke: Macmillan
37. Perkins, David, (1987) 1994: A History of Modern Poetry: Modernism and After.
Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Vol. II.
38. Rabinovitz, Rubin, 1967: The Reaction Against Experiment in the English Novel,
1950-1960.New York, London: Columbia University Press.
39. Rice, Philip, Waugh, Patricia eds. (1989) 1991: Modern Literary Theory: A Reader.
London: Edward Arnold.
40. Schorer, Mark, 1961: Modern British Fiction. London, Oxford, N.Y.: Oxford
University Press.
41. Stevenson, Randall, 1986: The British Novel Since the Thirties. London: B. T.
Batsford Ltd.
42. Stevenson, Randall, 1993: The Twentieth Century Novel in Britain. New York,
London: Harvester, Wheatsheaf.
43. Taylor, John Russel, 1962: Anger and After. London: Methuen and Co Ltd.
44. Verdonk, Peter and Weber, Jean Jacques eds. 1995: Twentieth Century Fiction: From
Text to Context. London and New York: Routledge.
45. Verdonk, Peter, 1993: Twentieth Century Poetry: From Text to Context. London and
New York: Routledge.
46. Waugh, Patricia, 1992: Postmodernism: A Reader. London: Edward Arnold.
47. Waugh, Patricia, 1995: Harvest of the Sixties. Oxford, New York: Oxford University
Press.
48. Wong, F. Cynthia, 2000: Kazuo Ishiguro. Horndon: Northcote Publishers Ltd.
49. Wright, Elizabeth, 1984: Psychonalytic Criticism: Theory in Practice. London:
Routledge
The course is intended to provide students with a concise introduction to contemporary
literatures in the English language, focusing on the British scene as it complements the
lectures. The seminars are principally concerned with individual works written in the period; a
selection of these, to be specified in the first seminar, will form the basis of in-class
discussions.
Assessment is based on class participation, short tests on the selected readings and a home
essay.