University of Ulster, Faculty of Arts, School of Languages and Literature
ENG106C2A Literature and Society in Ireland: An Introduction
MODULE TITLE
Literature and Society in Ireland: an Introduction
MODULE CODE
-
LEVEL/CREDIT POINTS
-
SEMESTER
-
MODULE STATUS
-
LOCATION
-
CO-ORDINATOR
Dr. Éamonn Ó Ciardha
TEACHING STAFF RESPONSIBLE FOR MODULE DELIVERY:
Dr. Éamonn Ó Ciardha
Email:
e.ociardha(at)mx.uni-saarland.de
Phone: +49 (0)681-302-70440
Office: C5 3, room 4.10
INTRODUCTORY DESCRIPTION AND RATIONALE
This module offers an introduction to the history of Irish literature in English in its social,
cultural and political context, involving close literary study of selected texts by some of the
most representative Irish writers in English.
The module is offered as part of the Irish Literature in English Minor strand, and links well
with modules on Twentieth-century Literature in years 2 and 3; and, also, with related
modules in History and Irish Studies.
AIMS
1. To introduce students to key themes and patterns in Irish writing in English.
2. To introduce students to central debates about the nature and politics of Irish writing, gaining
an understanding of historical and cultural frameworks.
3. To appreciate the formal and aesthetic qualities of key Irish texts, gaining an understanding of
genre, and of the relationship between English and Irish literary history.
4. To develop students’ skills of critical analysis, argument and formal academic writing
5. To encourage students to engage with alternative viewpoints and to negotiate them
through constructive critical discussion
1
University of Ulster, Faculty of Arts, School of Languages and Literature
ENG106C2A Literature and Society in Ireland: An Introduction
6. To help students to adapt to independent patterns of study characteristic of third-level
education
LEARNING OUTCOMES
On completion of the module, you should be able to:
1. situate Irish literature in its historical and social context;
2. comprehend the critical debates and political arguments surrounding modern Irish
literature;
3. appreciate the range of forms and styles of Irish writing in English, understand how
these relate to social contexts, and make connections between differing genres and
texts.
You will also have developed significant transferable skills, including:
1. the capacity to take on complex ideas and information;
2. the ability to present structured and informed arguments, both orally and on paper;
3. the experience of organizing a personal timetable and workload, delivering written
work in a presentable fashion to deadlines.
LEARNING AND TEACHING METHODS
Students will attend 1, 90 minute lecture per week. The lectures will strive to deal with all the
set texts in a comprehensive way, identifying certain key areas of inquiry, suggesting possible
directions of critical investigation, and signalling areas of controversy. Suggestions for further
reading and analysis should subsequently be pursued in seminars, and during private study.
In addition to lectures and seminars, students are also expected to undertake an extensive
programme of private reading and study, during which they are expected to read the
set texts, study background literature and secondary criticism, prepare for seminars, and
produce written work for assessment. This work should by definition be primarily selfdirected, with help and guidance from module staff (in the first instance from the seminar
tutor).
ASSESSMENT The assessment consists of a 90 minute end-of-semester test, consisting of
approximately a dozen questions, each carrying the same weight and each
focusing on key aspects of early modern Irish History and historiography. Students are
expected to write an essay in response to two questions of their choice.
TEACHING SCHEDULE
Lecture 1
Introduction
2
University of Ulster, Faculty of Arts, School of Languages and Literature
ENG106C2A Literature and Society in Ireland: An Introduction
Lecture 2
Irish Literature in Irish
Lecture 3
Edmund Spenser I
Lecture 4
Jonathan Swift
Lecture 5
Maria Edgeworth, Castle Rackrent (I)
Lecture 6
James Clarence Mangan and Thomas David, Selected Poems
Lecture 7
Sheridan Le Fanu, In a Glass Darkly
Lecture 8
Pillars of Independence: John Mitchel and P. H. Pearse
Lecture 9
W. B. Yeats, Selected Poems (I) and Cathleen Ni Houlihan
Lecture 10
J. M. Synge, The Playboy of the Western World
Lecture 11
George Bernard Shaw, John Bull’s Other Island
Lecture 12
James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (I)
Lecture 13
James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (II)
Lecture 14
W. B. Yeats, Selected Poems (II)
Lecture 15
Kate O’Brien, The Ante-Room
Lecture 16
Louis MacNeice
Lecture 17
Patrick Kavanagh
Lecture 18
Seamus Heaney
Lecture 19
Seamus Heaney
Lecture 20
3
University of Ulster, Faculty of Arts, School of Languages and Literature
ENG106C2A Literature and Society in Ireland: An Introduction
Robert MacLiam Wilson, Eureka Street (I)
Lecture 21
Recap
Lecture 22
Recap
ESSENTIAL READING
Crotty, Patrick (ed.), Modern Irish Poetry (Belfast: The Blackstaff Press, 1995)*
Edgeworth, Maria, Castle Rackrent (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
Harrington, J. P. (ed.), Modern Irish Drama (New York: Norton, 1991).
Joyce, James, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (London: Penguin, 2004).
Le Fanu, Sheridan, In a Glass Darkly (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
Mangan, James Clarence, Poems, ed. David Wheatley (The Gallery Press, 2003).
O’Brien, Kate, The Ante-Room (London: Virago, 1995).
Wilson, Robert McLiam, Eureka Street (London: Minerva, 1996).
Yeats, W. B., Selected Poetry, ed. Timothy Webb (London: Penguin, 2000).
*Cathleen Ni Houlihan (Lecture 8), The Playboy of the Western World (Lecture 9), and John
Bull’s Other Island (Lecture 10) are all included in Harrington, J. P. (ed.), Modern Irish
Drama.
*The lectures on Louis MacNeice (Lecture 17), Patrick Kavanagh (Lecture 18), Seamus
Heaney (Lecture 19), Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill and Paula Meehan (Lecture 20) will all focus
on poems included in Crotty, Patrick (ed.), Modern Irish Poetry.
RECOMMENDED READING
Bourke, Angela, et al (eds.) The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing Volumes IV and V:
Irish Women's Writing and Traditions (Cork: Cork University Press, 2002).
Boyce, D. George, Nationalism in Ireland, 3rd edn., (London: Routledge, 1995).
Boyce, D. George, and O’Day, Alan (eds.), The Making of Modern Irish History: Revisionism
and the Revisionist Controversy (London: Routledge, 1996).
Brown, Terence, Ireland: a Social and Cultural History, 1922-1985, 2nd edn., (London:
Fontana, 1985).
Cairns, David, and Richards, Sean, Writing Ireland: Colonialism, Nationalism and Culture
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988).
Connolly, S. J. (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Irish History (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1998).
4
University of Ulster, Faculty of Arts, School of Languages and Literature
ENG106C2A Literature and Society in Ireland: An Introduction
Corcoran, Neil, After Yeats and Joyce (Oxford, OUP, 1997).
Deane, Seamus, Celtic Revivals: Essays in Modern Irish Literature, 1880-1980 (London:
Faber, 1985).
Deane, Seamus, A Short History of Irish Literature (London: Hutchinson, 1986).
Deane, Seamus, et al (eds.), The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, 3 vols. (Derry: Field
Day, 1991).
Deane, Seamus, Strange Country: Modernity and Nationhood in Irish Writing Since 1790
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1997).
Eagleton, Terence, Heathcliff and the Great Hunger: Studies in Irish Culture (London: Verso,
1995).
Harte, Liam and Parker, Michael (eds), Contemporary Irish Fiction: Themes, Tropes and
Theories (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000).
Hutchinson, John, The Dynamics of Cultural Nationalism: The Gaelic Revival and the
Creation of the Irish Nation State (London: Allen & Unwin, 1987).
Kennedy-Andrews, Elmer, Modern Irish Fiction (Colin Smythe, 2005).
Kiberd, Declan, Inventing Ireland: The Literature of the Modern Nation (London: Jonathan
Cape, 1995).
Kiberd, Declan, The Irish Writer and the World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2005).
Lyons, F. S. L., Ireland Since the Famine (London: Fontana, 1985).
Lyons, F. S. L., Culture and Anarchy in Ireland, 1890-1939 (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1982).
MacDonagh, Thomas, Literature in Ireland: Studies in Irish and Anglo-Irish Literature
(London: Fisher Unwin, 1918).
Morash, Christopher, A History of Irish Theatre 1601-2000 (Cambridge: Cambridge UP,
2002).
Peach, Linden, The Contemporary Irish Novel (Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).
Vance, Norman, Irish Literature: A Social History (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990).
Vance, Norman, Irish Literature Since 1800 (London: Longman, 2002).
Watson, George, Irish Identity and the Irish Literary Revival: Synge, Yeats, Joyce and
O’Casey (London: Croom Helm, 1979).
Welch, Robert, Changing States: Transformations in Modern Irish Writing (London:
Routledge, 1992).
Welch, Robert (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Irish Literature (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1996).
Wills, Clair, Improprieties. Politics and sexuality in Northern Irish Poetry (Oxford,
Clarendon Press, 1993).
Journals
Students should also keep themselves informed of new dissertations, books,
articles and other publications through Eighteenth-century Ireland, ÉireIreland, Field Day Review, History Ireland, Historical Journal, Irish
Ecclesiastical Record, Irish Economic and Social History, Irish Historical
Studies, Irish Sword, Studia Hibernica, and other relevant journals.
Websites
http://www.irishhistoryonline.ie/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/
http://www.rhs.ac.uk/bibl
http://www.tcd.ie/history/ihs/2006.php
5
University of Ulster, Faculty of Arts, School of Languages and Literature
ENG106C2A Literature and Society in Ireland: An Introduction
IMPORTANT
I would also refer students to an extensive collection of articles, review
articles, books and edited collections in the Clix files for this course, as well as
the English subject library’s reserve reading-room
6