SCHOOL OF ENGLISH
THIRD YEAR MODE II
COURSE BOOKLET
2004/2005
1
GENERAL ADVICE: The following is a list of those who will advise and help you should
you experience problems during the year—talk to someone; don’t keep it to yourself! It is
important that any circumstance which affects your work in English during the year is
brought to the attention of the Coordinator(s) of the Year.





Your student representative
Your tutors
Your seminar leaders
Your lecturers
Coordinators of Third Year English
Dr Fletcher J217 Tel. 7168418
Dr Cartlidge F105 Tel. 7168184
Dr Mathews J202 Tel. 7168346
(second semester only)

Chair of the School of English
Dr Janet Clare J205 Tel. 7168695

Associate Dean of Undergraduate
Advising
Mr Latham

Student Advisers




Disability Officer
Student Union Services (Welfare)
Student Health Services
A107
K205
Tel. 7168391
Tel. 7168476
Mr Garde
Tel. 7168366
Ms O’Grady
Tel. 7161727
www.ucd.ie/~advisers
Mr Bennett
Tel. 7167564
dss@ucd.ie; www.ucd.ie/disability
Student Centre
Tel. 7163112
Student Centre
Tel. 7163133
& 7163134
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School of English Academic Staff 2004/2005
Dr John Brannigan
Dr Ron Callan (on teaching leave first semester)
Dr Neil Cartlidge
Professor Andrew Carpenter
Dr Janet Clare (Chair of School)
Dr Danielle Clarke
Professor T P Dolan (on teaching leave first semester)
Mr Brian Donnelly
Dr Alan Fletcher (on teaching leave second semester)
Dr Charlotte Fryatt, B.A. Modular Teaching Fellow in
Anglo-Irish Literature and Drama
Dr Anne Fogarty (on teaching leave second semester)
Professor Declan Kiberd
Dr Eldrid Herrington, IRCHSS Postdoctoral Fellow
Dr Jarlath Killeen, IRCHSS Postdoctoral Fellow
Dr Frank McGuinness
(on teaching leave second semester)
Dr P.J. Mathews
Dr Gerardine Meaney
Professor Christopher Murray
Dr Helen O’Connell
Dr Michelle O’Connell
Mr Michael O’Rourke, B.A. Modular Teaching Fellow
in Old and Middle English
Dr Niamh Pattwell
Dr Tony Roche (on teaching leave first semester)
Dr Maria Stuart (on leave second semester)
Dr Simon Swift
Dr Christine Thijs
Dr Nerys Williams
Office
K202
J209
F105
G203
J205
J218
J204
J214
J217
Room 5,
Woodview
J211
J203
Room 11,
Woodview
Room 12,
Woodview
J212
Extension
8181
8158
8184
8792
8695
8694
8156
8160
8418
3090
J202
C210C
K203
J216
J215
Room 5,
Woodview
C210A
J210
C210
C208
J213
C209
8346
8256
8260
8238
8155
3090
8159
8348
3084
3083
8420
8251
8192
8681
8530
8488
8622
Office Hours for members of the department are listed on the Department of English notice-board and website.
School of English Administrators
Undergraduate Office
Ms Pauline Slattery
Ms Helen-Claire O’Hanlon
Ms Marguerite Duggan
Room J206
Tel. 716 8323
Tel. 716 8157 (mornings only)
Tel. 716 8157 (afternoons only)
Opening Hours: 9.30 am – 1 pm and 2 – 5 pm, Mondays to Fridays
Postgraduate Office
Room J201
Ms Helen Gallagher
Tel. 716 8480
Opening Hours: Mon: 9.30 am – 1 pm and 2 – 5 pm, Wed: 9.30 am – 1 pm,
Thurs: 9.30 am – 1 pm and 2 – 5 pm.
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THIRD YEAR ENGLISH
Summary of Important Information
LECTURE COURSES BEGIN:
Thursday, 16th September 2005
INTRODUCTORY/ORIENTATION LECTURE:
Thursday, 16th September, 2.00 pm, Theatre M. [First half of lecture slot].
(Including distribution of course booklets and seminar registration forms).
FIRST LECTURE (GENDER & WRITING COURSE):
Thursday, 16th September, 2.00 pm, Theatre M. [Second half of lecture slot].
REGISTRATION FOR SEMINARS:
 Registration forms handed out Thursday 16th September, 2.00 pm lecture, Theatre M.
 Forms collected Tuesday 21st September, 12.00 pm lecture, Theatre M.
 Class lists posted on notice-boards by Monday, 27th September.
(PASSPORT PHOTO ESSENTIAL: bring to first seminar class).
REGISTRATION FOR TUTORIALS:
 Thursday 23rd September, Room J208, 9.30 am – 2.00 pm.
(PASSPORT PHOTO ESSENTIAL at registration)
First Semester Only:
Staggered week for all classes:
classes run from Thursdays through to the following Wednesdays.
SEMINARS BEGIN:
First Semester:
Second Semester:
Friday, October 1st, 2004.
Week beginning 10th January 2005
SEMINARS END:
First Semester:
Second Semester:
Tuesday, 8th December 2004
Friday, 11th March 2005
TUTORIALS BEGIN:
First Semester:
Second Semester:
Thursday, 30th September 2004
Week beginning 10th January 2005
DATES OF ACADEMIC YEAR 2004-2005:
Thursday, 16th September
to
Wednesday, 8th December
th
Monday, 10 January
to
Saturday, 12th March
th
Monday, 4 April
to
Saturday, 23rd April
Bank Holidays: 25th October 2004, 17th March 2005, 25th March 2005, 28th March 2005
READING WEEK: Monday, 25th – Friday, 29th October, inclusive
(NO UNDERGRADUATE CLASSES)
ESSAY DEADLINES:
First Semester Seminar Essay: By 4.30 pm Thursday 16th December 2004
Second Semester Seminar Essay: By 4.30 pm Monday 21st March 2005
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INTRODUCTION TO THIRD YEAR ENGLISH, 2004-2005
Mode II students
Third Year English builds on your training in First and Second Year English towards critical
analytical and writing skills, towards breadth and depth of literary, historical and theoretical
knowledge, and towards well-founded originality of understanding of the relations between
form and content, text and context.
Assessment analysis: One quarter of your final results in Third Year English will be drawn
from the work you do in your two seminars; over half will be based on your work for the six
individual lecture courses you will take (Papers 1, 2 and 3); and almost one fifth will be
based on a demonstration of close reading and an ability to compare the material of various
lecture courses (Paper 4). Preparing for the end-of-year examinations will be a significant
element of your weekly English tutorial seminar. Hence the three types of teaching and
learning—seminars, lectures and tutorial seminars—are essential to your overall success this
year.
Beneficial Aggregation: Third Year students (excluding B.A. International students) carry
forward 30% of their Second Year Summer Examination marks. An individual’s Second
Year marks will become part of their B.A. degree results only if they are beneficial to the
student. Students will receive:
either
 the combined 30% (Second Year) and 70% (Third Year) marks
or
 100% Third Year marks
depending on whichever is the higher.
Attendance: In Third Year, Mode 2, you are required to attend three lecture courses in each
semester, one seminar course in each semester, and one tutorial throughout the academic
year.
Bear in mind that your attendance will be monitored, and that penalties may accrue to your
continuous assessment marks for non-attendance (see section on Seminar Regulations
elsewhere in this Booklet).
Books: It is expected that students will buy and read all “Required Reading” for their
courses. Orders for all books have been placed with the Campus Bookstore.
Website: The website for the Department of English is available at the following address:
www.ucd.ie/english
Lecture Courses (ENG 3011/3012/3013/3014/3015/3016):
How many? Two Modern English and one Old and Middle English lecture courses per
semester.
How are these lecture courses different to First and Second Year courses?
Your First and Second year lecture courses focused on specific literary genres, periods, and
national literatures. The focus is now extended through a particular concentration on how the
social and political contexts of literature can be seen in the way in which literary categories
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and criteria of excellence are formed, challenged and shown to be contingent and hybrid. The
lecture courses will achieve this through, for example:
(a) exploring how Medieval stories of fantasy and adventure express their social and ethical
contexts
(“Epic and Romance” ENG 3011)
(b) considering the changing ideas of canon and epic over time
(“The Formation of Canons” ENG 3016)
(c) examining how gender issues alter our understanding of “high art”
(“Gender and Writing” ENG 3015)
(d) exploring the function of dream-visions in the Middle Ages to articulate new ideas and
offer a critique of society
(“Medieval Dream-Visions” ENG 3012)
(e) comparing different national literatures
(“Literature of Nations” ENG 3014)
(f) measuring how modern drama traces the investment of power in the Establishment
(“Tradition and Experimentation” ENG 3013)
Seminar Options (ENG 3018/3019):
How many seminars must I take?
Mode II students must attend and complete the work for two seminars over the year.
How do I register for seminars?
Elsewhere in this handbook you will find a complete list of seminar options, and you should
make your choices during the first week of term. Seminar registration forms will be handed
out at the Introductory Lecture on Thursday, 16th September at 2.00 pm in Theatre M. On
this form, you must select your seminars for each semester in order of choice, naming all
available seminars. Every effort will be made to accommodate students in a seminar high on
their order of choices, but this will not always be possible. Forms will be collected at the
lecture on Tuesday, 21st September at 12.00 noon in Theatre M. The School of English
reserves the right to assign those students who submit incomplete or late forms to whichever
seminar is deemed appropriate. Classes will start on Friday, 1st October.
NOTE: You must bring a single passport-sized photo with your name on the back to the first
class.
What kind of work is expected of me in the seminar?
A seminar is very much a work in progress. In relation to one specific topic over nine weeks,
together with the group you create the debate that gives the seminar life and through which
your own critical analytical skills develop. These skills are tested and will grow through the
challenge you set yourself to become involved in group work. With this approach to class
work—discovering, comparing, contrasting and developing your position on issues that arise
in the course through open-ended exploratory engagement with texts and contexts in debate
with your fellow students and course-leader—the success of the seminar is guaranteed.
What does this mean in practical terms?
When you sign on for a seminar you enter a contract: you agree to do the set primary reading
(and viewing, if required) each week and to come to class with questions and insights
sparked off by this reading and some ongoing secondary reading. Often, one or more students
will be asked to prepare a class presentation on a specific topic or text, but every student in
the group should prepare their own response to this material. Informal meetings between two
or more students outside class times to discuss texts will yield good results. You will be
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asked to develop an essay title well before the end of the course, and you should begin to
think about possible essay topics from the first week of the course.
Hints for essay writing:
The kind of seminar essay required is a well-planned, well-organised exploration of a
selected topic, as agreed with your seminar leader. The bases of the essay should be analysis
and argument with examples carefully chosen to back up your argument. You should identify
and then engage with the challenges raised by the essay topic in as broad-ranging and indepth a manner as possible, testing counter-arguments where appropriate. Where you use
experts you should enter into dialogue with them and seek to assimilate their views in an
argumentative spirit. Writing more than one draft will almost always improve your standard.
Please set aside time for the preparation and writing of your essay!
Tutorials (ENG 3017):
How often must I attend?
You are required to attend one tutorial seminar per week for nine weeks of each semester.
Six weeks of tutorials in each semester will be devoted to Modern English and three weeks to
Old and Middle English. You will not change rooms for this tutorial; however, in some
tutorial groups you will change tutors.
How do I register for tutorials?
Tutorial registration for UCD students only is on Thursday, 23rd September in J208, from
9.30 am – 2.00pm. (JYA and Erasmus students will be registered for tutorials at a separate
session, to be announced.) Tutors and tutorial times will be posted beforehand. Tutorial
places are allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.
NOTE: You will not be allowed to register for tutorials without a single passport-sized photo.
What is the purpose of the tutorial?
Third Year tutorials have a four-fold purpose:
(a) to allow you a space free of the pressures of assessments which count towards the final
exam in order to develop your analytical skills in a mutually supportive and challenging
environment
(b) to allow you an opportunity to respond to the issues which arise in lectures on particular
courses
NOTE: it is not possible to cover all required texts listed for the core lecture courses
(c) to develop your close reading skills in order to prepare you for the specific part of the
end-of-year examinations where these skills will be tested (Paper 4)
(d) to develop your understanding of how the six lecture courses link and interact, again in
preparation for a specific part of the end-of-year examinations (Paper 4)
With these purposes in mind, you will be asked to write short essays in practical criticism,
four for Modern English and two for Old and Middle English. These will help you develop
valuable skills and you must regard them as necessary exercises.
Note: Many English Departments in other institutions have dispensed with tutorials. They are
costly in terms of time and money. The School of English in UCD continues to invest in
tutorials because of the important role they play as a touchstone for mutual support and
challenge, and for the development of ideas and skills among our students. Your active
involvement in the tutorial is what justifies their continuation.
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What is my role in the tutorial?
Your role requires your active involvement:
a) reading the set texts and completing other necessary preparation work beforehand
each week
b) attending the tutorial each week
c) in the tutorial, expressing your own ideas and listening to those of others
d) submitting the short essays which your tutor may assign
(This is work in which you can experiment with ideas and develop your critical skills
outside the pressure of the examinations.)
e) using your tutor’s office hours for individual guidance and feedback.
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REGULATIONS
SEMINAR ESSAY REGULATIONS (Continuous Assessment)
ESSAY LENGTH: 4,000 words (16 pages approximately; double-spaced typing).
Hand-written essays are acceptable with the permission of the seminar leader. Such essays must be
legibly written on one side only of each page, on every second line.
SEMINAR MARK: One essay mark + attendance/contribution assessment constitute 12.5% of your
overall mark in English (one half of your total C/A mark of 25%).
ESSAY DEADLINES and PENALTIES FOR LATE SUBMISSION:
 If you cannot submit your work on time, you should contact the relevant Coordinator of Year.
In general, only a appropriate medical certificate or verifiable personal excuse will be an acceptable
basis for an extended deadline.
First Semester Seminar Essay:
By 4.30 p.m. Thursday, 16th December
10 mark penalty: essays submitted by 4.30 pm, Tuesday, 21st December
20 mark penalty: essays submitted by 4.30 pm, Monday, 10th January
30 mark penalty: essays submitted by 4.30 pm, Friday, 22nd April
(last day of term)
nd
50 mark penalty: essays submitted after 22 April
Second Semester Seminar Essay:
By 4.30 pm, Monday, 21st March
10 mark penalty: essays submitted by 4.30 pm, Tuesday, 29th March
20 mark penalty: essays submitted by 4.30 pm, Monday, 4th April
30 mark penalty: essays submitted by 4.30 pm, Friday, 22nd April
50 mark penalty: essays submitted after 22nd April
Late essays should be submitted to J206 or to the relevant Coordinator of Year to be datestamped. Individual seminar leaders will not accept essays. Essays will not be accepted
after the examinations begin in April/May 2005.
WORKS CITED: All essays should supply a list of works cited, as described in the “Style Sheet” in
this Booklet.
COVER SHEETS: You are required to complete a “Cover Sheet” for each essay and submit essays
and “Cover Sheets” to J206 to be date-stamped. Please do not submit your essays in plastic covers.
STYLE SHEET: Essays submitted in a form that does not conform to “Style Sheet” issued by the
department will be penalised to a maximum of 5 marks.
Non-attendance penalty: a penalty of ten marks will accrue to the essays of students who have
(without adequate reason) missed more than three out of the full number of sessions in a seminar
course. In general, only a relevant medical certificate or verifiable personal excuse will be an
acceptable basis for waiver of this penalty. Reasons for absences (including any medical certs)
should be sent in writing to the Coordinators of Year.
The above information may be subject to change. Please check notice-boards regularly.
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PLAGIARISM
Definition:
The term plagiarism refers to the unacknowledged use of someone else’s ideas; in other
words, you plagiarise when, by implication or otherwise, you offer someone else’s thoughts
and ideas as your own. You must at all times present your own work for assessment and must
give explicit and correct references for all quotations, ideas and arguments from other
sources, identifying clearly each borrowing you use. Sources of material include all
printed and electronic publications or unpublished materials, including theses and
essays, written or presented by others. Copying or paraphrasing another person’s ideas or
writings, including the essays of other students, without adequate reference, is plagiarism.
There are no fuzzy edges about this: if you take an idea from someone or somewhere else,
you must acknowledge it by giving an accurate and full citation. Also, you must not
represent work done in collaboration with others as your own unaided work. Furthermore,
you must not allow your work to be used without acknowledgement by other students.
Remember: it is not enough to cite a source in your bibliography at the end of the essay: you
must show how and to what extent you have used it during the essay. Always clearly
indicate when you begin and end your use of a source.
If you are ever unsure about what plagiarism is, please ask a member of the teaching staff to
clarify it before you submit your essay.
Penalties:
Please realize that the School of English does not accept that plagiarism occurs by mistake –
for example, to ‘forget’ that someone else’s ideas were not your own is not an excuse. You
have an absolute responsibility to ensure that all sources are fully acknowledged. You cannot
expect to be given marks for someone else’s work, whether you appropriate that work
fraudulently or carelessly.
When you submit an essay, you are obliged to sign a coversheet which says: “I certify that
this assignment is my own work and that I have not copied the work, or any part of it, from
any source, student or other individual.” We take this very seriously and the penalties for not
abiding by it are severe.
Essays where plagiarism is proven are automatically failed, and normally receive a very
low fail mark. In addition, the fact of plagiarism goes on your record card in the School of
English, and could affect future reference requests you may wish to make.
Random software plagiarism checks are made on essays throughout the year.
The School may at any time conduct an oral examination to verify written work
submitted.
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Avoiding Plagiarism:
As you take notes, it is vitally important that you distinguish clearly between:
 quotations from the text you are reading
 ideas that you wish to refer to, but do not intend to quote word-for-word
 your own reactions and insights to what you are reading.
The best way to do this is:
 place a quotation within inverted commas and provide a page number (line numbers
may be required in some instances) in brackets beside it
 indicate to yourself that an idea is taken from the text by writing ‘X argues’ or ‘X
suggests that’ and so on, and give the page number(s) for the source of the idea
 place your own ideas in square brackets or put an asterisk by them in your notes.
Derivative Work:
Please remember also that producing an essay that is a collection of quotations, even if they
are scrupulously acknowledged, is not what is required. In your essay you need to construct
your own arguments and secondary sources should be used as part of the process of
formulating your arguments.
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EXAMINATION ADVICE
Each of the four examinations in Third Year English is three hours in duration.
Papers 1, 2 and 3 examine the six lecture courses you are taking this year. In each of these exams,
you must answer two questions, each worth 50%, one answer for each of the two lecture courses
being examined on that paper.
Paper 4: Textual Analysis and Cross-Course Comparison:
Paper 4 is divided in two parts, the Textual Analysis (Close Reading) section from which you must
answer two questions, each worth 25% of the overall paper (you chose one from four possible
passages for each), and the Cross-Course Comparison section from which you must answer one
question only, worth 50% of the paper (use separate answer books for each answer). It is highly
advisable that you divide your time in the exam in accordance with the marks going for each section –
that is, you should give half the exam (90 minutes) to your cross-course comparison question, and one
quarter of the exam (45 minutes) to each of the two textual analysis questions.
Paper 4, Section A: Textual Analysis: The purpose of your analysis of the set passage is to test your
capacity for close reading of how formal and thematic elements interact in that particular passage
only. Reference to the rest of the text from which the passage comes should only be made incidentally
(if at all), insofar as it helps to reveal the dynamics of form and theme in the set passage. In Old and
Middle English, the four passages from which you will choose will be taken from the following: a.)
Beowulf, a passage or passages, to be announced; b.) Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Fitt 1; c.) The
Knight’s Tale; d.) Le Morte Darthur, ed. Cooper, 403-527; e.) The Dream of the Rood; f.) Piers
Plowman, a passage or passages, to be announced; g.) The Book of the Duchess; h.) The Parliament of
Fowls.
The four Modern English passages will include at least one each of fiction, drama and poetry.
Paper 4, Section B: Cross-Course Comparison Question:
The instructions at the top of this part of Paper Four will read: “Write an essay on one of the
following topics. Discuss in relation to at least two of this year’s lecture courses, with reference to
relevant texts. You must not repeat arguments used elsewhere in the examination.” Seminar courses
do not count as main courses here. The questions themselves will contain a topic Coordinatoring, to
which you will apply your comparison of your chosen two lecture courses, in order to ground your
answer’s wide-zoom-lens response to the general field of English language and literature. You are
being tested here on your capacity to engage with what you see as the key issues which bear upon
writing and reading as significant acts, and in doing so, you are encouraged to engage with your own
preoccupations as a student of English literature. In order to focus this response, you are asked to
explore the logic and impact of the organization of literary texts into at least two of the relatively
arbitrary groupings that are this year’s Third Year English lecture courses.
Repetition of Material:
In any one exam answer, you must not repeat material used elsewhere in the assessed work, including
in other exams and in seminar essays. The basis of this regulation is that you must not be awarded
two sets of marks for what is essentially the same work. You can address the same text twice in
separate questions if you are dealing with it in a way that does not substantially overlap with your
previous use of it. In other words, you must offer new critical treatments of such texts, taking the
material in a new direction. You are encouraged to explore related conceptual and theoretical
questions and principles in a range of your answers, while ensuring that this does not generate overlap
in the main substance of your analysis of different texts.
How many poems are enough to represent one writer’s work?
Unless otherwise indicated, you should work on at least two shorter poems by any one writer, or one
long poem (eg, Eliot’s The Waste Land), or a combination of any number of longer and shorter
poeMs A poetic sequence constitutes a single long poem, at least two parts from which you should
address in detail.
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MARKING PARAMETERS
ESSAY and EXAMINATION GRADE CATEGORIES:
FIRST CLASS HONOURS:
70% +
I
SECOND CLASS HONOURS, GRADE I:
60% to 69%
II.1
SECOND CLASS HONOURS, GRADE II:
50% to 59%
II.2
THIRD CLASS HONOURS:
45% to 49%
III
PASS:
40% to 44%
Pass
FAIL:
39% or less
Fail
Each of the following categories is a set of guidelines to indicate the standard of a particular grade.
Any individual essay or exam answer is likely to display qualities from more than one of these
categories. Examiners will indicate the specific reasons for the grade awarded at the end of the essay
or script.
First Class Honours 70-100%
First Class Honours between 90-100%:
Supreme performance, engaging profoundly, systematically and comprehensively with question set,
brilliantly demonstrating
 A superlative mastery of the subject matter, richly supported by quotations and/or references,
reflecting deep and broad knowledge and understanding as well as extensive reading
 An outstanding ability to organise, analyse, develop and express ideas and arguments in an
original, fluent, sophisticated and discriminating manner
 An optimal capacity for critical analysis
 The display of rare penetrative insight, originality and creativity
 minimal presentation errors (spelling, punctuation, etc.)
First Class Honours between 80-89%:
Exceptional performance, engaging deeply and systematically with the question set, with consistently
impressive demonstration of
 A comprehensive mastery of the subject matter, amply supported by quotations and/or
references
 reflecting deep and broad knowledge and critical insight as well as extensive reading
 an exceptional ability to organise, analyse, develop and present arguments fluently and
lucidly with a high level of critical analysis
 a highly-developed capacity for original, creative and logical thinking
 minimal presentation errors (spelling, punctuation, etc.)
First Class Honours between 70-79%
Highly superior performance, engaging closely and systematically with the question set, with
consistently strong evidence of
 a comprehensive mastery of the subject matter, ably supported by quotations and/or
references
 excellent ability to organise, analyse, develop and express arguments fluently and lucidly
with a high level of critical analysis
 a highly-developed capacity for original, creative and logical thinking
 minimal presentation errors (spelling, punctuation, etc.)
Second Class Honours Grade 1: 60-69%
Excellent performance, engaging substantially with the question set, demonstrating
 strong grasp of the subject matter, well supported by quotations and/or references
 well-developed capacity to analyse issues, organise material, present arguments clearly and
cogently
13
 some original insights and capacity for creative and logical thinking (the original moments
might not have been developed enough, in comparison to First Class Honours)
 a few presentation errors (spelling, punctuation, etc.)
Second Class Honours Grade 2: 50-59%
Good performance–intellectually competent answer (i.e. factually sound) with evidence of a
reasonable familiarity with the relevant literature and techniques
 acceptable grasp of the subject material
 ideas clear but stated rather than well developed and insufficiently supported by quotations
and/or references
 writing of sufficient quality to convey meaning but some lack of fluency and command of
suitable vocabulary
 omission of parts of the subject in question or the appearance of several minor errors
 average critical awareness and analytical qualities
 limited evidence of capacity for original and logical thinking
 noticeable number of presentation errors (spelling, punctuation, etc.)
Third Class Honours: 45-49%
Satisfactory performance–intellectually adequate answer with evidence of some familiarity with the
relevant literature and techniques:
 basic grasp of subject matter, but somewhat lacking in focus and structure
 main points covered in answer, but lacking detail
 some effort to engage, but only a basic understanding of the topic portrayed
 some development of argument; disorganisation may be a problem
 only some critical awareness displayed
 few quotations and/or references included in answer
 appearance of several minor errors or one major error
 style may be unclear
 noticeable number of presentation errors (spelling, punctuation, etc.)
Pass: 40-44%
Mediocre / Barely acceptable performance only, showing limited understanding/knowledge of topic
and superficial awareness of relevant literature and techniques:
 limited focus on question asked
 basic framework/structure of answer poorly developed
 evidence of unclear presentation of argument, random layout, with some omissions or
inaccuracies in answer
 appearance of unsubstantiated statements, lacking in quotations and/or references
 descriptive rather than argumentative or analytical answer presented
 a lack of detailed explanation or critical reflection
 an incomplete or rushed answer i.e. the use of bullet points through a significant part of/all of
answer
 derivative, and limited evidence of capacity for logical thinking generally
 considerable number of presentation errors (spelling, punctuation, etc.)
Fail between 30-39%
Unacceptable performance, with more than one of the following limitations evident:
 insufficient understanding of the question displayed
 largely irrelevant answer to the topic or question
 display of some knowledge of material relative to the topic or question posed, but with very
serious omissions/errors and/or major inaccuracies included in the answer
 descriptive not analytical
 lack of clarity of expression
 lacking evidence of capacity for logical thinking generally
 poorly structured answer
 unacceptable number of presentation errors (spelling, punctuation, etc.)
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Fail between 20-29%
Wholly unacceptable performance, with more than one of the following limitations evident:
 unfinished answer (but not fragment) with deficient understanding of the topic or question
displayed
 little relevance to the topic or question
 descriptive not analytical
 confused expression
 lacking evidence of capacity for logical thinking generally
 poorly structured answer
 unacceptable number of presentation errors (spelling, punctuation, etc.)
Fail between 10-19%
Wholly unacceptable performance, with more than one of the following limitations evident:
 fragment of answer with almost no understanding of the topic or question displayed—
irrelevant response or unfinished answer (but not a fragment) with almost no understanding
of the topic or question displayed—irrelevant response
 descriptive not analytical
 confused expression
 lacking evidence of capacity for logical thinking generally
 almost no structure to the answer
 clear evidence of plagiarism in sections of the essay or script
 unacceptable number of presentation errors (spelling, punctuation, etc.)
Fail between 5-9%
Wholly unacceptable performance, with the following:
 clear evidence of plagiarism throughout the essay or script
Fail between 1-4%
Wholly unacceptable performance, with more than one of the following limitations evident:
 essay or script entered in name of student
 response of up to one sentence
 clear evidence that entire essay or script has been plagiarized
Fail of 0%
 no essay or script entered
PLEASE CHECK THE NOTICE-BOARDS REGULARLY FOR NOTIFICATION OF
CHANGES TO PROCEDURES AND/OR SCHEDULES.
On behalf of the Combined Departments of English, we wish you well for the year,
Coordinators: Dr Neil Cartlidge (Room F105), Dr Alan Fletcher (Room J217),
and Dr P.J. Mathews (Room J202 – second semester).
15
Third Year Tutorial Schedule 2004-05 (Registration: UCD students 23rd September, 9.30 – 2, J208)
Gp. Day
Weeks
Med. English Tutor
Weeks
1 Mon
2 Mon
3 Mon
4 Mon
5 Mon
6 Mon
7 Mon
8 Mon
9 Mon
10 Mon
Time Room
12
12
12
2
2
2
3
3
4
4
J216
Dr Helen O'Connell
J112
Mr Harry Clifton
F105
Dr Neil Cartlidge
A106/D112 Mr Harry Clifton
C209
Dr Nerys Williams
F105
Dr Neil Cartlidge
C209
Dr Nerys Williams
J209
Mr Harry Clifton
J216
Dr Helen O'Connell
J202
Dr P.J. Mathews
Modern English Tutor
1, 2, 3 and 7, 8, 9
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
1, 2, 3, and 7, 8, 9
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
1, 2, 3, and 7, 8, 9
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
1, 2, 3, and 7, 8, 9
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Ms Michelle Piazza
Ms Michelle Piazza
Dr Neil Cartlidge
Ms Michelle Piazza
Ms Michelle Piazza
Dr Neil Cartlidge
Dr Christine Thijs
Dr Christine Thijs
Ms Michelle Piazza
Ms Michelle Piazza
4, 5, 6
7, 8, 9
7, 8, 9
7, 8, 9
4, 5, 6
7, 8, 9
4, 5, 6
7, 8, 9
4, 5, 6
7, 8, 9
11 Tues
12 Tues
13 Tues
14 Tues
15 Tues
16 Tues
17 Tues
18 Tues
19 Tues
10
10
11
11
11
1
1
2
2
F101
Mr Padraig Kirwan
G105
Mr Harry Clifton
J207
Mr Harry Clifton
J202
Dr P.J. Mathews
F105
Dr Neil Cartlidge
D106
Mr Harry Clifton
C214/G102 Dr Charlotte Fryatt
C210A
Dr Charlotte Fryatt
J209
Dr Padraig Kirwan
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
1, 2, 3 and 7, 8, 9
1, 2, 3, and 7, 8, 9
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
1, 2, 3, and 7, 8, 9
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
1, 2, 3, and 7, 8, 9
Dr Christine Thijs
Dr Christine Thijs
Dr Christine Thijs
Dr Christine Thijs
Dr Neil Cartlidge
Dr Niamh Pattwell
Dr Niamh Pattwell
Dr Niamh Pattwell
Dr Niamh Pattwell
7, 8, 9
4, 5, 6
4, 5, 6
7, 8, 9
7, 8, 9
4, 5, 6
7, 8, 9
7, 8, 9
4, 5, 6
20 Wed
21 Wed
22 Wed
23 Wed
24 Wed
25 Wed
26 Wed
27 Wed
28 Wed
29 Wed
10
10
10
1
1
1
1
2
2
2
C209
J202
J204
C209
J202
F107
J217
J216
J112/t.b.a
J217
Dr Nerys Williams
Dr P.J. Mathews
Dr Jonathon Mitchell
Dr Nerys Williams
Dr P.J. Mathews
Dr Jonathon Mitchell
Dr Fletcher / Dr Evans
Dr Helen O'Connell
Dr Jonathon Mitchell
Dr Fletcher / Dr Evans
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
1, 2, 3, and 7, 8, 9
1, 2, 3 and 7, 8, 9
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
1, 2, 3, and 7, 8, 9
1, 2, 3 and 7, 8, 9
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
1, 2, 3 and 7, 8, 9
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Dr Christine Thijs
7, 8, 9
Dr Christine Thijs
4, 5, 6
Mr Michael O'Rourke 4, 5, 6
Dr Niamh Pattwell
7, 8, 9
Dr Niamh Pattwell
4, 5, 6
Mr Michael O'Rourke 4, 5, 6
Dr Fletcher/Mr O'Rourke 7, 8, 9
Dr Niamh Pattwell
7, 8, 9
Dr Niamh Pattwell
4, 5, 6
Dr Fletcher/Mr O'Rourke 7, 8, 9
30 Thurs
31 Thurs
32 Thurs
33 Thurs
34 Thurs
35 Thurs
36 Thurs
37 Thurs
38 Thurs
39 Thurs
40 Thurs
10
10
10
11
11
12
12
1
1
3
3
J217
J208
J216
C209
J208
J216
J208
J208
J216
J216
G109/t.b.a
Dr Fletcher / Dr Evans
Dr Padraig Kirwan
Ms Diana Perez Garcia
Dr Nerys Williams
Dr Jonathon Mitchell
Dr Padraig Kirwan
Ms Diana Perez Garcia
Dr Padraig Kirwan
Dr Jonathon Mitchell
Ms Diana Perez Garcia
Dr Jonathon Mitchell
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
1, 2, 3 and 7, 8, 9
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
1, 2, 3 and 7, 8, 9
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
1, 2, 3 and 7, 8, 9
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
1, 2, 3 and 7, 8, 9
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
1, 2, 3 and 7, 8, 9
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Dr Fletcher/Mr O'Rourke 7, 8, 9
Dr Christine Thijs
4, 5, 6
Dr Christine Thijs
7, 8, 9
Dr Niamh Pattwell
4, 5, 6
Dr Niamh Pattwell
7, 8, 9
MsMichelle Piazza
4, 5, 6
MsMichelle Piazza
7, 8, 9
Mr Michael O'Rourke 4, 5, 6
Mr Michael O'Rourke 7, 8, 9
MsMichelle Piazza
4, 5, 6
MsMichelle Piazza
7, 8, 9
41 Fri
42 Fri
43 Fri
44 Fri
45 Fri
10
10
12
12
2
K202
J213
K202
J216
J102
Dr Charlotte Fryatt
Ms Diana Perez Garcia
Dr Charlotte Fryatt
Dr Helen O'Connell
Ms Diana Perez Garcia
1, 2, 3 and 7, 8, 9
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
1, 2, 3 and 7, 8, 9
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Mr Michael O'Rourke
Mr Michael O'Rourke
Mr Michael O'Rourke
Mr Michael O'Rourke
Mr Michael O'Rourke
4, 5, 6
7. 8. 9
7, 8, 9
4, 5, 6
7, 8, 9
The above details are subject to change - please check noticeboards regularly.
16
LECTURE SCHEDULE AT A GLANCE
FIRST SEMESTER
(Term begins Thursday 16th September 2004)
Gender and Writing: Gender, Modernism, Postmodernism (ENG 3015)
Dr John Brannigan and Dr Gerardine Meaney
Thursdays 2 pm Theatre M
Epic and Romance: Medieval Literature (ENG 3011)
Lecturers: Dr Cartlidge, Dr Thijs and Dr Pattwell
Tuesdays 12 PM Theatre M
Literature of Nations: Exploring National Identities (ENG 3014)
Lecturers: Mr Brian Donnelly and Dr Michelle O’Connell
Wednesdays 11am Theatre M
SECOND SEMESTER
(Term begins Monday 10th January 2005)
Medieval Dream-Visions (ENG 3012)
Lecturers: Dr Cartlidge, Professor Dolan and Dr Thijs
Tuesdays 12 pm Theatre M
The Formation of Canons: Epic and Anti-Epic (ENG 3016)
Lecturers: Dr Ron Callan and Professor Declan Kiberd
Wednesdays 11 am Theatre M
Tradition and Experimentation: Dramatizing Power (ENG 3013)
Lecturers: Dr Brannigan, Professor Murray and Dr Roche
Thursdays 2 pm Theatre M
17
Lecture Schedule
FIRST SEMESTER (Term begins 16th September 2004)
Epic and Romance: Medieval Literature (ENG 3011)
Lecturers: Dr Cartlidge, Dr Thijs and Dr Pattwell
Tuesdays 12 PM Theatre M
All four of the texts on this course are essentially stories of magic and adventure. In Beowulf
(before ca. 1000) the hero is matched first against a monster, then against the monster’s
mother and then finally a dragon; in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (late 14th century) the
knights of King Arthur’s Round Table are challenged to a bizarre Christmas
“beCoordinatoring game” by a mysterious giant; in Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale (early 1380s),
two imprisoned knights fall in love with a princess and eventually have to fight for her hand;
while in the final two books of Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur (completed 1470;
printed 1485) there is an account of the tragic collapse of the Arthurian kingdom in mutual
betrayal and apocalyptic bloodshed. Yet in each of the four texts, the power of the narrative
lies as much in its atmosphere and detail as in the momentum of the story itself, while at the
same time fantasy is employed not just for the sake of entertainment, but also to express a
variety of quite distinct social and ethical aspirations.
Course Texts:
Beowulf. Trans. Norton Anthology. Vol.1.
Some passages from the original will be set for close study: these
will be taken from Beowulf: a student edition, edited by George
Jack. Oxford : Clarendon, 1994.' and photocopies will be made
available in the Students' Union."
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (text to be announced).
Fitt 1 of the poem (the first quarter of it) will also be set for close study.
The Knight’s Tale. Riverside Chaucer (Or The Knight’s Tale. The Canterbury Tales.
Norton.)
Le Morte Darthur, books 7 and 8 (“The Tale of Sir Lancelot and Queen Guenivere” and
“The Death of Arthur”). Ed.Helen Cooper. Oxford Classics. pp. 403-527.
Lecture Schedule:
September 21st
September 28th
October 5th
October 12th
October 19th
October 25th - 29th inclusive
November 2nd
November 9th
November 16th
November 23rd
November 30th
December 7th
Dr Cartlidge
Dr Thijs
Dr Thijs
Dr Thijs
Dr Pattwell
READING WEEK
Dr Pattwell
Dr Cartlidge
Dr Cartlidge
Dr Cartlidge
Dr Pattwell
Dr Pattwell
Introduction
Beowulf
Beowulf
Beowulf
Knight’s Tale
(no undergraduate classes)
Knight’s Tale
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Malory
Malory
18
Literature of Nations: Exploring National Identities (ENG 3014)
Lecturers: Mr Brian Donnelly and Dr Michelle O’Connell
Wednesdays 11am Theatre M
The creation of nationality remains a contemporary and relevant issue, as across the world, old and
once-stable national boundaries have been dissolved and reconfigured. This lecture course examines
some of the ways that conceptions of nationhood and identity have been explored in literature since
the late eighteenth century. The course investigates the role of language in the formation of nation. It
will study examples of various literary genres – the novel, poem, play and essay – which serve as
challenging mediums of national identity.
Course Texts:
Maria Edgeworth.
Brian Friel.
James Joyce.
W.B. Yeats.
W.B. Yeats.
William Godwin
Charles Dickens
Peter Ackroyd
Castle Rackrent (1800) (any edition)
Translations (1990) (any edition)
Ulysses (1922): Episode 12, “Cyclops”
Selected Poetry, ed. Timothy Webb (Penguin 1991)
a selection of essays (photocopies available from the Students’ Union).
Caleb Williams (OUP, 1998)
Bleak House (OUP, 1998)
The House of Doctor Dee (Penguin, 1994)
A selection of poetry by Irish poets Seamus Heaney, Derek Mahon, etc.
(Photocopies available from the Students’ Union). Other texts to be announced.
Lecture Schedule:
September 22nd
September 29th
October 6th
October 13th
October 20th
October 25th - 29th inclusive
November 3rd
November 10th
November 17th
November 24th
December 1st
December 8th
Recommended Reading:
Ackroyd, Peter
Allen, Walter
Auerbach, Erich
Bakhtin, Mikhail
Bakhtin, Mikhail
Benjamin, Walter
Bhabha, Homi (ed.)
Butler, Marilyn
Colley, Linda
Davis, Lennard J.
Deane, Seamus
Mr Donnelly
Mr Donnelly
Mr Donnelly
Mr Donnelly
Mr Donnelly
READING WEEK
Mr Donnelly
Dr O’Connell
Dr O’Connell
Dr O’Connell
Dr O’Connell
Dr O’Connell
Introduction
Castle Rackrent
Yeats: Poetry and Essays
Ulysses (Cyclops Episode)
Contemporary Irish Poetry
(no undergraduate classes)
Translations
Caleb Williams
Caleb Williams
Bleak House
Bleak House
The House of Doctor Dee
Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination (2002)
The English Novel (1954)
Mimesis (1946),
The Dialogic Imagination (1975, trans. 1981)
Epic and Novel (1941)
"The Storyteller" in Illuminations (1955, trans. 1970)
Nation and Narration (1990)
Jane Austen and the War of Ideas (1975, 1990)
Britons: Forging the Nation 1707-1937 (1994)
Factual Fictions (1983)
Celtic Revivals: Essays in Modern Irish Literature 1880-1980
(London, 1995)
19
Heaney, Seamus
‘Englands of the Mind’, ‘Mossbawn’ and ‘The Sense of Place’,
all in Heaney’s Preoccupations: Selected Prose 1968-1978
(London, 1980), pp. 150-69.; 17-27; 131-49.
Hollingworth, Brian
Maria Edgeworth’s Irish Writing (Basingstoke, 1977)
Kelly, Gary
The English Jacobin Novel 1780-1805 (1976)
Kiberd, Declan
Inventing Ireland (London, 1995)
Leavis, Q.D.
Fiction and the Reading Public (1932)
Lukács, Georg
The Theory of the Novel (1920, trans. 1971)
Macrae, Alasdair D.F.
W.B. Yeats: A Literary Life (Basingstoke, 1995)
McClintock, Anne
Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial
Context (London, 1995)
McKeon, Michael
The Origins of the English Novel 1600-1740 (1987)
Paulin, Tom
‘A New Look at the Language Question’, in Ireland and the
English Crisis (Newcastle, 1984)
Rutland, R. & M. Bradbury From Puritanism to Postmodernism (1991)
Watt, Ian
The Rise of the Novel (1957)
Studies on individual authors will be recommended during the course.
20
Gender and Writing : Gender, Modernism, Postmodernism
(ENG 3015)
Dr John Brannigan and Dr Gerardine Meaney
Thursdays 2pm Theatre M
This course explores the role of gender in modernism and postmodernism. It outlines key
elements in the configuration of gender in twentieth century literature, including the
interaction between aesthetics and politics, myth and history, social change and formal
experimentation. While the course is predominantly concerned with theories of gender and
especially feminist theory, it also engages with postcolonial, psychoanalytical,
poststructuralist and historical accounts of modernism, postmodernism and their relation.
Primary Texts
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (Penguin)
T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land (Faber)
James Joyce, Ulysses (Penguin)
Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse (Penguin)
Virginia Woolf, Between the Acts (Penguin)
Elizabeth Bowen, The Last September (Penguin)
Eugene O’Neill, Long Day’s Journey into Night (Nick Hern)
Angela Carter, Wise Children (Vintage)
Jeannette Winterson, The Passion (Vintage)
[One other, to be announced].
Lecture Schedule
September 16th
September 23rd
September 30th
October 7th
October 14th
October 21st
October 25th - 29th inclusive
November 4th
November 11th
November 18th
November 25th
December 2nd
Introduction (JB/GM)
Conrad, Heart of Darkness (GM)
Eliot, The Waste Land (JB)
Joyce, ‘Circe’ from Ulysses (JB)
Woolf, To the Lighthouse (JB)
Woolf, Between the Acts (GM)
READING WEEK (no undergraduate classes)
Bowen, The Last September (JB)
O’Neill, Long Day’s Journey into Night (GM)
[Text to be announced] (GM)
Carter, Wise Children (GM)
Winterson, The Passion, and Conclusions (JB)
Further Reading
Bradbury, Malcolm & James McFarlane, eds. Modernism: 1830-1930 (Penguin, 1976)
Brooker, Peter, Modernism/Postmodernism (Longman, 1992)
Childs, Peter, Modernism (Routledge, 2000)
Docherty, Thomas, Postmodernism (Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1993)
Eysteinsson, Astradur, The Concept of Modernism (Cornell UP, 1990)
Faulkner, Peter, Modernism (Routledge, 1990)
Felski, Rita, The Gender of Modernity (Harvard UP, 1995)
Meaney, Gerardine, (Un)Like Subjects: women, theory, fiction (Routledge, 1993)
Nicholls, Peter, Modernisms: A Literary Guide (Macmillan, 1995)
Scott, Bonnie Kime, Refiguring Modernism (Indiana UP, 1995)
Stevens, Hugh and Caroline Howlett (eds), Modernist Sexualities (Manchester UP, 2000)
21
SECOND SEMESTER LECTURE SCHEDULE
(Term begins 10th January 2005)
Medieval Dream-Visions (ENG 3012)
Lecturers: Dr Cartlidge, Professor Dolan and Dr Thijs
Tuesdays 12 PM Theatre M
People in most ages of history have believed that dreams can provide a means of contact with a
higher world, bringing messages of prophecy or philosophical enlightenment, or else that they offer
some special insight into the workings of the human mind. In the Middle Ages poets often used the
fiction of the dream vision as a way of articulating ideas that it would be almost possible to express in
any other form. The Dream of the Rood (before ca. 1000) contains an almost psychedelic encounter
(or rather a series of encounters, in different dimensions) with the Cross of Christ’s crucifixion; Piers
Plowman (late 1370s) presents a detailed and panoramic dramatization of many of the social and
political issues of its day, including such problems as the rise of commercialism and the nature of
public responsibility for the poor; Chaucer’s Book of the Duchess (after 1386) is apparently an elegant
consolation-poem addressed to his patron, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, on the occasion of the
death of his wife Blanche; while The Parliament of Fowls (late 1370s or early 1380s), also by
Chaucer, presents a subtle and at times comical analysis of the function of love, both in terms of the
natural world and of human society.
Course Texts
The Dream of the Rood the text used is that in Mitchell and Robinson, A Guide to Old English, 6th
edn. and that photocopies are available in the students' union.
(Translations can be found in the Norton Anthology. Vol.1, and elsewhere).
Piers Plowman: Passus 1-7. The Vision of Piers Plowman: A Complete Edition of the B-Text.
Ed.A.V.C. Schmidt. London: Everyman: 1974. (frequent reprints)
The Book of the Duchess. Riverside Chaucer
(Or Chaucer’s Dream-Poetry. Ed. Helen Phillips and Nick Havely. London: Longman, 1997).
The Parliament of Fowls. Riverside Chaucer.
NB: In the close reading exercise in the examination, students will be expected to answer on one
passage chosen from a field of four. These four will be taken from the following: a.) Beowulf, a
passage or passages, to be announced; b.) Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Fitt 1; c.) The Knight’s
Tale; d.) Le Morte Darthur, ed. Cooper, pp. 403-527; e.) The Dream of the Rood; f.) Piers Plowman,
a passage or passages, to be announced; g.) The Book of the Duchess; h.) The Parliament of Fowls.
Lecture Schedule
January 11th
Dr Cartlidge
January 18th
Dr Thijs
January 25th
Dr Thijs
February 1st
Dr Cartlidge
February 8th
Dr Cartlidge
February 15th Professor Dolan
February 22nd Professor Dolan
March 1st
Professor Dolan
March 8th
Professor Dolan
April 5th
Dr Cartlidge
April 12th
Dr Cartlidge
Introduction to Dream Poetry
Dream of the Rood
Dream of the Rood
Parliament of Fowls
Parliament of Fowls
Piers Plowman
Piers Plowman
Piers Plowman
Piers Plowman
Book of the Duchess
Book of the Duchess
22
The Formation of Canons: Epic and Anti-Epic (ENG 3016)
Lecturers: Dr Ron Callan and Professor Declan Kiberd
Wednesdays 11 AM Theatre M
What is the canon in literature studies? The Greek word kanon indicated a “reed” or “rod” used as a
means of measurement; later it denoted a rule or law, and this sense descends as its primary meaning
into modern European languages. For those who studied the Bible, canonisers were people who
distinguished the orthodox from the heretical. Within the field of modern creative literature, however,
yesterday’s heresy becomes today’s orthodoxy. We like to think that no list is closed to challenging
outsiders, yet a few books are censored, many neglected or unavailable, while a constellation of
publishers, media producers, academics, and booksellers decides what the public should read and the
student should study. Or do they have such influence?
The course will throw into question the ways in which canons are made and broken. Was
Shakespeare’s work always “great”? Is Milton’s poetry currently over-rated? Why was a genius like
Walt Whitman compelled to review (and acclaim) his own writing? How did these writers establish
the epic forms for their nations? And how have later writers like Alice Walker challenged a male
tradition of epic? Can epic even be defined? Is it even possible to write a modern epic without
mockery of the form?
REQUIRED TEXTS:
William Shakespeare.
John Milton.
Walt Whitman.
W.B. Yeats.
Don Delillo.
Alice Walker.
Richard II. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969.
Paradise Lost. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2000.
Leaves of Grass. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976.
On Baile’s Strand. Students’ Union/Photocopy
White Noise. London: Picador, 1986.
The Color Purple. London: Women’s Press, 1983.
Lecture Schedule:
January 12th
January 19th
January 26th
February 2nd
February 9th
February 16th
February 23rd
March 2nd
March 9th
April 6th
April 13th
Dr Callan
Prof Kiberd
Dr Callan
Prof Kiberd
Dr Callan
Prof Kiberd
Prof Kiberd
Dr Callan
Dr Callan
Prof Kiberd
Prof Kiberd/Dr Callan
Introduction
Richard II
Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost
Leaves of Grass
Leaves of Grass
On Baile’s Strand
White Noise
Color Purple
Color Purple
Conclusion
RECOMMENDED READING (FORMATION OF CANONS):
Bloom, Harold. The Western Canon: The Books and Schools of the Ages.
New York: Harcourt Brace, 1994.
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. Loose Canons: Notes on the Culture Wars.
Oxford: Oxford UP, 1992.
Guillory, John. Culture Capital: The Problem of Literary Canon Formation.
Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1993.
Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory: An Introduction.
Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1983.
Leavis, F.R. The Great Tradition: George Eliot, Henry James, Joseph Conrad. 1948.
Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1962.
Lauter, Paul. Canons and Contexts. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1991.
Morrison, Toni. Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination.
London: Picador, 1992.
23
Tradition and Experimentation: Dramatizing Power (ENG 3013)
Lecturers: Dr Brannigan, Professor Murray and Dr Roche
Thursdays 2 pm Theatre M
This course explores how modern drama, beginning with Ibsen, put on stage, in the words of
Bernard Shaw, ‘Not only ourselves, but ourselves in our own situations’. Certain themes are
traced – women in society, power play in the family, social conflict within a politically
understood dynamic, and questions of race, gender and economics – in order to show how
modern drama interested and indeed implicated audiences in the consequences of the
investment of power in the patriarchy and what may loosely be called the Establishment. In
tandem with the themes already cited, the course will pay attention to theatrical modes, such
as naturalism, the epic theatre, minimalism, and versions of realism.
Course Texts:
Bertolt Brecht.
Caryl Churchill.
Henrik Ibsen.
Sarah Kane.
David Mamet.
Arthur Miller.
Harold Pinter.
G.B. Shaw.
Tennessee Williams.
Mother Courage and Her Children (Methuen)
Cloud Nine (Nick Hern)
A Doll’s House (Methuen)
Blasted (Methuen)
Oleanna (Methuen)
The Crucible (Penguin)
The Homecoming (Faber)
Major Barbara (Penguin)
A Streetcar Named Desire (Penguin)
Lecture Schedule:
January 13th
January 20th
January 27th
February 3rd
February 10th
February 17th
February 24th
March 3rd
March 10th
April 7th
April 14th
Professor Murray
Dr Brannigan
Professor Murray
Dr Roche
Dr Roche
Professor Murray
Dr Brannigan
Dr Roche
Professor Murray
Dr Brannigan
To be announced
Introduction
Ibsen, A Doll’s House
Shaw, Major Barbara
Brecht, Mother Courage and Her Children
Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire
Miller, The Crucible
Pinter, The Homecoming
Churchill, Cloud Nine
Mamet, Oleanna
Kane, Blasted
Conclusion
Secondary Reading:
Bigsby, C.W.E., A Critical Introduction to Twentieth- Century American Drama. Vol.2 (CUP,
1982).
Brandt, George W. (ed.), Modern Theories of Drama (OUP, 1998).
Brecht, Bertolt, Brecht on Theatre, ed. and trans. John Willett (Methuen, 1974).
Brook, Peter, The Empty Space (Penguin, 1972).
Esslin, Martin, Theatre of the Absurd (Penguin, 1980).
Innes, Christopher, Modern British Drama 1890-1990 (CUP, 1992).
Innes, Christopher, Avant-Garde Theatre, 1892-1992 (Routledge, 1992).
Sierz, Aleks, In-yer-face Theatre: British Drama Today (Faber, 2001).
Williams, Raymond, Drama from Ibsen to Brecht (Penguin, 1983).
24
SEMINAR OPTIONS 2004-05 AT A GLANCE
FIRST SEMESTER
ENGLISH SEMINAR OPTIONS (ENG 3017)
Mode II students must take one of the following seminars
NUMBER
01
SEMINAR LEADER
Dr John Brannigan
02
Prof. Andrew Carpenter
03
04
05
Dr Danielle Clarke
Mr Brian Donnelly
Ms Borbála Faragó
06
Dr Alan Fletcher
07*
Dr Anne Fogarty
08
Dr Anne Fogarty
09
10
11**
Dr Charlotte Fryatt
Ms Ciara Hogan
Dr Colin A. Ireland
12
13
14
Prof. Declan Kiberd
Dr Jarlath Killeen
Dr Padraig Kirwan
15
16
17
Dr Frank McGuinness
Dr P. J. Mathews
Dr Gerardine Meaney
18
19
20
Prof. Christopher
Murray
Dr Helen O’Connell
Dr Michelle O’Connell
21
22
23
Mr Michael O’Rourke
Dr Niamh Pattwell
Dr Julie Anne Stevens
24
Dr Maria Stuart
25
Dr Simon Swift
26
27
Dr Christine Thijs
Dr Nerys Williams
SEMINAR TITLE
Contemporary English Fiction: 1979 to
the present
Eighteenth-century verse in English:
Verse from England
Reading Paradise Lost
Joyce’s Dubliners
Memory and Identity in Contemporary
Irish Poetry
Medieval Celluloid
Narrative and Ethics: Readings in
Contemporary Irish Fiction
Narrative and Ethics: Readings in
Contemporary Irish Fiction
Irish Stories
The Dramatic Monologue
Old English Literature in an Irish
Context
Joyce’s Ulysses
Oscar Wilde
Reserved Spaces: Borders, Cultures &
Identities in Native American
Literatures
The Art and Practice of Stage-Craft
Staging the Celtic Tiger
Monstrous Speculations
Exploring Beckett’s Drama
Irish Gothic Fiction
The Poetess: The representation of the
literary woman in the 19th century
Henry James and Queer Sexuality
Late Medieval Drama: The Interludes
Perception and Perspective in Irish
Fiction, 1860 – 1900
Call and Response: African-American
Writing
Stories of the Eye: Literature and
Visual Representation
English Language
Modern American Poetry
DAY , TIME & PLACE
Tuesday, 3pm,
D105
Tuesday, 3pm,
D106
Tuesday, 3pm, F101
Tuesday, 3pm, F101A
Monday, 11am, F106
Monday, 11am, J102
Screenings:
Monday, 12-2, J208
Monday, 11am, J104
Tuesday, 3 pm, F106
Friday, 11am, F101A
Monday, 11am, J112
Friday, 11 am F101
Monday, 11am, D105
Friday, 11am, J104
Tuesday, 3pm, J207
Monday, 11am, D106
Tuesday, 3pm, J202
Friday, 11am, J208
Screenings:
Friday, 12-2, J208
Friday, 11am, J207
Friday, 11am, D112
Tuesday, 3pm J102
Friday, 11am, E106
Tuesday, 3pm, J110
Monday, 11am,
F101A
Friday, 11am, J102
Friday, 11am, J112
Tuesday, 3pm, J104
Monday, 11am, F101
*Note: Dr Fogarty’s first class only for course No. 07 will take place on Tuesday, October 5 th at 3.00 pm in
F106. Subsequent classes at the Monday advertised time and place.
**Note: Dr Ireland’s course begins one week late on October 8 th; its final class on December 3rd will run for 2
hours from 11 am – 1 pm.
25
SECOND SEMESTER
ENGLISH SEMINAR OPTIONS(ENG 3018)
Mode II students must take one of the following seminars
NUMBER
28
29
30
31
SEMINAR LEADER
Dr John Brannigan
Dr Ron Callan
Dr Ron Callan
Prof. Andrew Carpenter
SEMINAR TITLE
Contemporary English Fiction
Canadian Fiction in English
Canadian Fiction in English
Eighteenth-century verse in English:
Verse from Ireland
Lord of the Rings and Gormenghast
Between Europe and America:
Contemporary Irish Poetry
Between Europe and America:
Contemporary Irish Poetry
Wise Virgins
DAY , TIME, & PLACE
Tuesday, 3pm, J110
Monday, 11am, D105
Friday, 11am, D112
Tuesday, 3pm, F101A
32
33
Dr Neil Cartlidge
Mr Harry Clifton
34
Mr Harry Clifton
35
Prof. Terence Dolan
36
37
38
Prof. Terence Dolan
Mr Brian Donnelly
Ms Borbála Faragó
Tuesday, 3pm, F106
Tuesday, 3pm, F101
Monday, 11am, F106
Dr Charlotte Fryatt
Ms Ciara Hogan
Prof. Declan Kiberd
Dr Jarlath Killeen
Dr P. J. Mathews
Wise Virgins
Joyce’s Dubliners
Memory and Identity in
Contemporary Irish Poetry
Irish Stories
The Dramatic Monologue
Joyce’s Ulysses
Oscar Wilde
Staging the Celtic Tiger
39
40
41
42
43
44
Dr Gerardine Meaney
Monstrous Speculations
45
Prof. Christoper Murray
46
Ms Ana Nunes
47
48
Dr Helen O’Connell
Dr Michelle O’Connell
49
50
51
Dr Niamh Pattwell
Dr Anthony Roche
Dr Simon Swift
52
Dr Christine Thijs
53
Mr Brian Thomson
54
Dr Nerys Williams
Shakespearean Tragedy: Forms of
Representation
Herstory: African American Women
Writers Write Back
Irish Gothic Fiction
The Poetess: The representation of the
literary woman in the 19th century
Late Medieval Drama: The Interludes
The Drama of Brian Friel
Stories of the Eye: Literature and
Visual Representation
Magic and Miracles in Anglo-Saxon
Written Sources
Mean Streets and Promiscuous
Blondes: Hard-Boiled Fictions and
American Dreams
Modern American Poetry
Friday, 11am, J208
Screenings:
Friday, 12-2, J208
Friday, 11am, J207
Tuesday, 3 pm, J104
Monday, 11am, F101
Tuesday, 3pm, J102
Monday, 11am, F101A
Friday, 11am, J102
Friday, 11am, J104
Monday, 11am, J102
Friday, 11am, F101A
Monday, 11am, J202
Monday, 11am, D106
Friday, 11am, E106
Tuesday, 3pm, D105
Tuesday, 3pm, D106
Monday, 11am, J104
Friday, 11am, J112
Tuesday, 3pm, J207
Friday, 11am, F101
Monday, 11am, J112
26
FIRST SEMESTER
ENGLISH SEMINAR OPTIONS
ENG 3017
01
Contemporary English Fiction: 1979 to the present
Seminar Leader: Dr John Brannigan
The aim of this course is to introduce students to contemporary fictional representations of
England and Englishness, and to examine the prevailing formal and thematic concerns of the
contemporary novel. The course will explore the significance of ideas of landscape, empire,
nation, community, and history for contemporary novelists in England, and will survey a
range of novels in the light of claims that recent English fiction constitutes a literature of
mourning or loss. Students are invited to consider these novels in relation to theoretical,
critical, and historical contexts.
Course Texts:
Pat Barker
Kazuo Ishiguro
John King
Graham Swift
Monica Ali
02
Union Street (Virago)
The Remains of the Day (Faber)
England Away (Vintage)
Last Orders (Picador)
Brick Lane (Black Swan)
Eighteenth-century verse in English: Verse from England
Seminar Leader: Professor Andrew Carpenter
The richness and variety of eighteenth-century English poetry has been increasingly
recognized in recent years, and this course will cover not only the work of well-known
figures such as Pope, Johnson and Gray but also that of their lesser-known contemporaries –
women and men. Attention will be paid to the intellectual, literary, social and political
background of the age.
Course Text: Eighteenth-century Poetry: an annotated anthology eds. David Fairer and
Christine Gerrard (Oxford: Blackwell, second ed. 2003).
03
Reading Paradise Lost
Seminar Leader: Dr Danielle Clarke
This course will concentrate on reading John Milton’s great epic poem (1667) in its historical
and cultural context, paying close attention to questions such as readership, political
meanings, use of sources, form, style and literary significance to later writers.
Course Text:
John Milton, Paradise Lost (any edition).
27
04
Joyce's Dubliners
Seminar Leader: Mr Brian Donnelly
This seminar will involve a close reading of Dubliners. The aim will be to see Joyce's
achievement in relation to contemporary literature in English and to the Irish literary
tradition.
The course text has a useful introduction and helpful notes. Photocopies of works for
comparison will be made available to class members.
Further reading will be suggested during the course.
Course Text:
James Joyce, Dubliners (1914), ed. Terence Brown, Penguin, 1992.
05
Memory and Identity in Contemporary Irish Poetry
Seminar Leader: Ms Borbála Faragó
The central theme of this course concerns ideas of identity formation in poetry. In an Irish
context nationhood and identity are particularly contentious concepts. The political,
historical and religious divides within the island stimulate diverse artistic responses.
Memory, both collective and individual, plays a substantial part in revealing underlying
currents that blueprint poetic structures of identity. From religious relics to bombs, United
Irishmen to hunger strikers, and Aisling figures to modern women, diverse images and ideas
resonate within these poetic texts. Examining these metaphors as demarcations of identity,
the course will probe into these poets’ responses to their interrogations of ‘who am I’.
Taking into consideration the changes that occur in present-day Ireland, the last class of the
seminar will focus on emerging immigrant poets and their peculiar input into the Irish
national narrative.
Course Texts:
Seamus Heaney, Opened the Ground: Poems 1966-1996. Faber 1998
Michel Longley, Selected Poems (Cape, 1998)
Medbh McGuckian, Shelmalier (Gallery, 1998)
Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, The Girl who Married the Reindeer (Gallery, 2002)
Immigrant poetry (photocopies will be made available).
06
Medieval Celluloid
Seminar Leader: Dr Alan Fletcher
NB. Students taking this course must be available for scheduled screenings.
This seminar course aims to raise awareness of two periods of cultural production which,
though remote from each other in point of time, nevertheless seem to share many
preoccupations in common. It will investigate some of the ways in which the modern and
postmodern era continues to invest in the late Middle Ages, especially as these are
represented in film. By counterpointing texts from the two ends of this timescale (a selection
of late medieval prose, poetry and drama, with modern and postmodern film), the course will
clarify our present stance in relation to the medieval past, and ask whether that past meets,
exceeds, or falls short of, the expectations of it that our culture has manufactured.
(continued overleaf)
28
Course Texts:
The Fair Maid of Astolat* (from The Morte Darthur of Sir Thomas Malory); The
Summoner’s Tale or The Wife of Bath in Riverside Chaucer; Everyman*; The Land of
Cokaygne*
*photocopies will be made available
Course Films:
Sleeping Beauty (Disney)
The Canterbury Tales (Passolini)
The Seventh Seal (Bergman)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Jones and Gilliam)
07
Narrative and Ethics: Readings in Contemporary Irish Fiction
Seminar Leader: Dr Anne Fogarty
What are the lines of demarcation between history and literature and between fact and
fiction? Can literary texts make truth claims? Does the writer have a social responsibility? Is
art immune from ethical imperatives? Such questions have been the perennial concerns of
literary criticism and will be the particular focus of this course which sets out to consider
how current debates about ethical values might act as an aid for understanding the numerous
factual fictions and virtual histories recently produced by Irish writers. The problem of the
aesthetic appropriation of historical events and personae, such as the Grand Duchess
Anastasia and Eliza Lynch, and of contemporary Irish murder cases will be discussed. The
use made by these authors of varied modes of narration, representation, and fictional voice in
order to arouse ethical responsiveness will be considered. The particular dimensions of Irish
postmodernism as practised by male and female authors will be explored. Special attention
will also be given to the problematic depiction of gender, the body, notions of the foreign,
and of sexual and monstrous others in these novels.
Course Texts:
John Banville, The Book of Evidence (Minerva, 1989).
Anne Enright, The Pleasure of Eliza Lynch (Vintage, 2003).
Mary Morrissy, The Pretender (Jonathan Cape, 2000).
Edna O’Brien, In the Forest (Orion, 2003).
08
Narrative and Ethics: Readings in Contemporary Irish Fiction
Seminar Leader: Dr Anne Fogarty
Description as in No. 07 above.
09
Irish Stories
Seminar Leader: Dr Charlotte Fryatt
The course explores forms of narrative in Irish drama, poetry, criticism and fiction. It will
begin with a seminar introducing some theories of narratology and interrogating the notion of
Irish history and culture as a “story”. It will continue with seminars on the stories told by
Irish writers of the Literary Revival, the post- or counter-Revival period, and contemporary
writers. The course concludes with a seminar on competing narratives in Irish literary
history and criticism. The aims of the course are as follows: to introduce a variety of texts
by Irish writers from the Irish Literary Revival to the present and to promote their study; to
set the chosen texts in historical and political context; to explore the ways in which Irish
29
writers have used stories and storytelling to construct personal, community and national
identities; to study the ways in which modern(ist) writers have used traditional and mythic
material.
Course Texts:
Augusta Gregory, Cuchulain of Muirthemne, (Dover edition).
J.M. Synge, The Playboy of the Western World [any edition; Dover Thrift is cheap]
Frank O’Connor, “Guests of the Nation” (Many editions appropriate; the text is also in the
Field Day Anthology)
Flann O’Brien, At Swim-Two-Birds (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2000)
Paul Muldoon, “The More a Man Has, The More a Man Wants”, in Quoof (London: Faber,
1983)
Declan Kiberd, Inventing Ireland (London: Vintage, 1995)
Roy Foster, The Irish Story: Telling Tales and Making it Up in Ireland (Harmondsworth:
Penguin, 1998)
10
The Dramatic Monologue: a study in genre, criticism and context.
Seminar Leader: Ms Ciara Hogan
In 1917 Ezra Pound described the dramatic monologue as ‘the most vital form’ inherited
from the Victorian period. Intellectual, playful, often controversial, the dramatic monologue
marked a departure from poetic convention.
This option traces the emergence and development of the dramatic monologue in the work of
three major Victorian poets, Robert Browning, Alfred Tennyson, A.C. Swinburne. We will
examine the properties that define the form, the topics in contemporary culture it was used to
explore, and assess its historical significance for the generation of modernist poets that
inherited it.
A major focus of this course is the development of skills of cultural analysis. Students will
be required to give short presentations, to contribute to class discussions, and to prepare a
short bibliographical essay.
Required Texts:
Robert Browning
Selected Poems (Penguin)
Alfred Tennyson
Selected Poems (Penguin)
Algernon Charles Swinburne Selected Poems (Carcanet)
11
Old English Literature in an Irish Context
Seminar Leader: Dr Colin A. Ireland
The pre-eminence of Old English literature is often assumed based on the prestige and
influence of Modern English. But this is a false assumption. The Anglo-Saxons had much to
learn from their various neighbours. Some Old English poems and certain aspects of Old
English literary culture are anomalous when viewed against surviving Old English literature
but can more readily be explained in the larger context of contemporaneous Early Irish
literary culture. Two Old English poems, The Seafarer and The Dream of the Rood, and
Bede’s account of Cædmon, the first recorded Old English poet from Bede’s Historia
Ecclesiastica, will be viewed against the background of early Ireland and the literature it
produced. All works in Old English, Early Irish and Latin will be read in translation, with
relevant sections of Old English poems being translated and discussed in class.
30
Course Texts:
Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, trans. Leo Sherley-Price, rev. by R.E.
Latham, intro. by D.H. Farmer (Penguin Classics, 1990; frequently reprinted).
T. Owen Clancy and Gilbert Márkus, trans., Iona: The Earliest Poetry of a Celtic Monastery
(Edinburgh UP, 1995).
Richard Hamer, trans. A Choice of Anglo-Saxon Verse (Atlantic Highlands, NJ, 1970;
frequently revised and reprinted).
The following chapters of Bede are to be read as background prior to the first seminar
meeting:
Irish mission from Iona in England
Vision of Irish Saint Fursey
Synod of Whitby
English students at Irish schools
Irish/English in Mayo
Cædmon, 1st English poet
English missionaries
trained in Ireland
Book iii chapter 3
Book iii chapter 19
Book iii chapter 25
Book iii chapter 27
Book iv chapter 4
Book iv chapter 24
Book v chapters 9, 10
Many additional sources will be made available as hand-outs.
Note: this course begins one week late on October 8th; the final class on December 3rd will
run for two hours.
12
Joyce’s Ulysses
Seminar Leader: Professor Declan Kiberd
A few years ago, James Joyce’s masterpiece Coordinatored all lists on both sides of the
Atlantic as the “book of the twentieth century”. This course will pursue a chapter-by-chapter
reading, guiding students through its complexities and answering at least some of its
challenges. Certain questions will recur: Joyce's use of epic modes; his sense of Dublin as an
intimate city; his attitude to the past, to nationalism and to religion; his revolutionary use of
new forms and styles, not least interior monologue; the role of the ‘heroic’ reader in decoding
the text; the mixture of high art and popular culture. In the course of our work, we shall try
to define just what it is that makes Ulysses the central exhibit in the story of Irish modernism,
while also registering its influence on European and post-colonial writers.
Essential Text:
The Student’s Annotated Ulysses, ed. Declan Kiberd, Penguin Twentieth Century Classics.
Recommended Reading:
Stuart Gilbert, James Joyce’s Ulysses
Frank Budgen, James Joyce and the Making of Ulysses
Emer Nolan, James Joyce and Nationalism
Hugh Kenner, Ulysses
Richard Ellmann, James Joyce
Ulysses on the Liffey
31
13
Oscar Wilde
Seminar Leader: Dr Jarlath Killeen
This seminar will look at a wide selection of the writings of Oscar Wilde, including his plays,
poetry, and prose work. Wilde is now considered one of the most important writers to emerge
from the 1890s, and his assessment of himself as symbolic of the age from which he came
has been vindicated. While most of our work will involve reading Wilde back into the 1890s,
including the historical, political and social connotations of his work, we will also assess his
place in the canon of English studies as a whole.
Text:
The Collins Complete Works of Oscar Wilde, ed. Merlin Holland, (Glasgow: Collins, 2001).
14
Reserved Spaces: Borders, Cultures & Identities in Native American
Literatures
Seminar Leader: Dr Padraig Kirwan
Within contemporary American Indian literatures there is a deepening emphasis upon the
image of ‘border’ as a spiritual, political, and racial expression of tribal identity. The seminar
will examine the numerous senses of boundary that are employed by Native American
authors. Native American images of boundary have far-reaching implications not only for
tribal communities, but for American society as well. For instance, in tribal writing ‘border’
is often evoked as an expression of minority status or cultural disenfranchisement.
Alternatively, ‘border’ can be presented as a meeting place where the events of colonization
may be confronted and understood: a site of inter-cultural conversation between America’s
Native and non-Native cultures. This seminar will scrutinize the many images of border that
appear in American Indian writing. As a means to achieve this goal, the textual imagery
surrounding indigenous borders, cultures and identities will be assessed and examined.
Amongst the literary images examined will be those involving:





Native American intellectual sovereignty
Tribal identity on the reservation and in urban areas
Indian culture, heritage, and traditions
Tribal land claims and contemporary indigenous rights
Postcolonial theory and its relevance to Native literatures
The authors examined in this course write in the English language and the works studied will
comprise of a cross-section of literary forms, including the novel, poetry, short story, and
critical theory, as well as film and modern Indian artwork.
Course Texts:
Erdrich, Louise. Jacklight: PoeMs1984. London: Flamingo, 1996.*
Krupat, Arnold, and Brian Swan, eds. Here First: Autobiographical Essays by Native
American Writers. New York: The Modern Library, 2000.*
Momaday, N. Scott. In the Bear’s House: PoeMsNew York: St. Martins Press, 1999.*
Sarris, Greg. Grand Avenue. 1994. New York: Penguin, 1995.
Sherman, Alexie “Dear John Wayne.” The Toughest Indian in the World. New York:
Atlantic Monthly Press, 2000.*
Sherman, Alexie, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. 1993. New York:
Vintage, 1997.
Silko, Leslie Marmon. “Storyteller.” Storyteller. New York: Arcade Publishing, 1981.*
Treuer, David. Hiawatha. New York: Picador, 1999.
32
Cinema:
Smoke Signals. Dir. Chris Eyre. Buena Vista. 1998.*
The Searchers. Dir. John Ford. Warner Bros. 1956.*
The Sopranos: The Columbus Day Episode. Dir. David Chase. HBO. 2002.*
Other Media:
Artwork by Shonto Begay (Navajo) and Alex Jacobs (Akwesasne Mohawk). Santa Fe:
Institute of American Indian Arts Museum, 2004.*
*
These texts/mediums will be made available to students as photocopies or will be circulated/viewed in class.
15
The Art and Practice of Stage-Craft
Seminar Leader: Dr Frank McGuinness
This course is an introduction to the principles of play-writing. Emphasis is placed on the
practice and reading of key texts in European theatre.
Course Texts:
Ibsen, A Doll’s House (Trans. Frank McGuinness) (Faber)
Shakespeare, Richard II (any edition)
Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale (any edition)
August Strindberg, Miss Julie and the Stronger (Trans. Frank McGuinness) (Faber)
16
Staging the Celtic Tiger
Seminar Leader: Dr P.J. Mathews
The theatre has long been an important arena for cultural and political debate in Ireland. This
course will explore a range of recent plays which reflect interestingly on the profound
cultural shifts of Celtic Tiger Ireland. Issues to be considered will include: the role of theatre
in contemporary Ireland; the dominance of monologue in recent drama; globalisation and the
Irish stage; women and Irish theatre; the centrality of JM Synge; theatre and popular culture.
Course Texts
Brian Friel, Dancing at Lughnasa (London: Faber, 1990)
Marina Carr, By the Bog of Cats (Gallery Press)
Conor McPherson, The Weir (London: Nick Hern Books, 1998)
Martin McDonagh, The Cripple of Inismaan
Eugene O’Brien, Eden (London:Methuen, 2001)
JM Synge, Riders to the Sea / Shadow of the Glen (Oxford: Oxford World’s Classics, 1995)
17
Monstrous Speculations: the evolution of Horror and Science Fiction
Seminar Leader: Gerardine Meaney
NB. Students taking this course must be available for scheduled screenings.
This course examines the influence of key mythic and fictional configurations in the horror
and science fiction genres and examines the ways in which the significance of much repeated
stories can change over time.
33
The course will draw upon genre theory, postcolonial and feminist criticism and
psychoanalytic readings of gothic, horror and science fiction texts, but will not presume
existing knowledge of these areas. It will ask if these generic fictions challenge our perceived
notions of literary traditions and the relationship between culture and history. While a wide
range of texts will be referred to, students are expected to select and focus on one genre or
theme.
Please note that additional material, including handouts, copies of overCoordinators, web
resources and directions to relevant ejournals will be made available through Blackboard. All
students on the course will need to be registered with computer services and have a current
user id and password to access this.
Required reading and viewing
Fiction












Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber (Vintage)
Phillip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (a.k.a.
Bladerunner) (Gollancz)
J Sheridan Le Fanu ‘Carmilla’ in In a Glass Darkly (Wordsworth
Classics)
Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire (Time Warner)
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (Penguin)
Bram Stoker, Dracula (Penguin)
Film
Bladerunner
Bride of Frankenstein
The Company of Wolves
Dracula (2 versions, directed by Tod Browning and Francis
Coppola respectively)
Interview with the Vampire
The Matrix
Ford
Textbooks
Gelder, K (2000) The Horror Reader. Routledge
Roberts, A (2000) Science Fiction. Routledge
18
Exploring Beckett’s Drama
Seminar Leader: Professor Chris Murray
Whereas Beckett was firmly of the 1950s avant-garde his influence on the drama of the rest
of the twentieth century was far beyond that of a minority figure. This course will attempt to
establish the main enduring strengths of Beckett’s plays by paying attention to (i) his use of
comedy (ii) his stage images (iii) his radical opposition to the ‘well-made play’ in the
expression on stage, on radio, and on television of a vision at once tragic and metaphysical.
Main text (essential): The Complete Plays of Samuel Beckett (Faber, 1986)
Preliminary reading: Beckett, Murphy [1938], reprinted by Picador (1990)
Beckett, Proust [1931], reprinted by John Calder (2003).
A secondary reading list will be distributed in class.
34
19
Irish Gothic Fiction
Seminar Leader: Dr Helen O’Connell
Gothic fiction is central to nineteenth-century Irish literary history. It registers many of the
sectarian, generic, colonial and class anxieties of the period. This seminar will examine
gothic fiction as a response to both enlightenment and modernisation. Related themes such
as orientalism, superstition and supernaturalism will be explored in detail. Particular points of
discussion will be genre, orality, nationality, colonialism, rebellion, gender and class. The
seminar will conclude with an exploration of the Revival occultism of W.B. Yeats within the
context of nineteenth-century gothic fiction.
Course Texts:
Charles Robert Maturin: Melmoth the Wanderer, 1820, ed. Victor Sage (Penguin, 2000)
William Carleton, ‘Wildgoose Lodge’, 1844 (made available as a photocopy)
Sheridan Le Fanu: Uncle Silas, ed. Victor Sage (Penguin, 2000) and selections from In a
Glass Darkly, ed. Robert Racy (Oxford University Press, 1993)
Bram Stoker, Dracula, 1897, ed. Maurice Hindle (Penguin, 1993)
W.B. Yeats: The Celtic Twilight, 1902 (Colin Smythe, 1994)
20
The Poetess: The representation of the literary woman in the nineteenth century
Seminar Leader: Dr Michelle O’Connell
Until relatively recently, a commonly-held belief was that the number of women writers
before the twentieth century was negligible. General wisdom also held that those women
writers who did exist had to struggle with an ideology which declared that women should be
seen and not heard. In actual fact, a great number of women wrote poetry and prose in the
late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and their voices were both heard and respected.
This course is an exploration of the idea of the inspired woman writer both as a role for the
woman poet, and an ideology served by women writers. Beginning with Staël’s Corinne
(1807), we will examine the idea of inspiration with regard to women, and explore how
English writers used Staël’s model as a means of representing the position of the female
writer in nineteenth-century England.
NOTE: Students should read Corinne for the first seminar
Course Texts:
Madame [Germaine] de Staël, Corinne , trans. Sylvia Raphael (Oxford)
Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh and Selected Poems (Penguin, 1995)
Laetitia Elizabeth Landon, The Improvisatrice (selections will be made available to students)
21
Henry James and Queer Sexuality
Seminar Leader: Mr Michael O’Rourke
This course will examine new interpretations of Henry James in the light of the efflorescence
of queer criticism of both James and his voluminous fictions. His short stories in particular
contain daring and radical representations of transgressive desires and marginalized, queer
identities. We will look at the importance of non-normative, dissident, and same/sex passions
in a body of shorter fiction which ostensibly conforms to, yet ironically mocks, the
contemporary Victorian moral codes James faced. By critiquing the very notion of sexual
identity James prefigures the queer theorizing of Judith Butler and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
and the historiography of sexual subjectivities of Jeffrey Weeks and Michel Foucault. We
35
will interrogate whether James anticipates the features of modern Queer Theory also through
his plots and narrative strategies in which heteroerotic desire is always at odds with the nonheteronormative, the queer. This course will aim to transform our understanding of this most
enigmatic and exciting writer.
Course Texts:
Henry James, The Turn of the Screw (any edition).
Photocopies of the following Henry James stories will be made available for purchase.
“The Beast in the Jungle”; “Brooksmith”; In the Cage; “Mora Montravers”;
“A Round of Visits”; “The Jolly Corner”; “The Pupil”; “The Death of the Lion”;
“The Altar of the Dead”; “The Figure in the Carpet”.
22
Late Medieval Drama: The Interludes
Seminar Leader: Dr Niamh Pattwell
Although less ‘popular’ and less spectacular than the large-scale Cycle Plays, the Interludes
were an important aspect of Late Medieval/Early Reformation literature. The Interludes were
heavily influenced by the Morality Plays: they were played in a small intimate venue;
employed the boisterous, occasionally dark comedy of the vice figures; and inventively
exploited the loose boundary that existed between audience and players. The Interludes,
however, were less obviously religious than the Morality Plays; they dealt primarily with
issues of a socio-political and secular nature such as the role of the king, definitions of
aristocracy and the nature of good government. Despite these ‘medieval’ influences, Court
Drama was also shaped by the new humanist learning and by the advent of printing. Note,
for example, the prevalence of named authors and more accurate dating of texts. The later
Interludes provide valuable insight into the tensions associated with a changing and
religiously charged society, using ‘popish’ means (religious drama) for protestant ends.
Course Text:
Walker, Greg, ed., Medieval Drama: An Anthology. Blackwell Publishers, 2000.
A list of secondary reading will be provided during the term, but in the interim the following
books are worth considering:
Beadle, Richard. The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Theatre. Cambridge,
1994.
Happé, Peter, English Drama before Shakespeare. Harlow: 1999.
Walker, Greg, Plays of Persuasion: Drama and Politics at the Court of Henry VIII.
Cambridge: 1991.
Walker, Greg. The Politics of Performance in Early Renaissance Drama. Cambridge: 1998.
23
Perception and Perspective in Irish Fiction, 1860 – 1900
Seminar Leader: Dr Julie Anne Stevens
This course examines the significance of perception and perspective (what we see and how
we see it) in Irish fiction about the Big House in the second half of the nineteenth century.
The course takes its lead from Sheridan Le Fanu’s Uncle Silas, where the character of Silas
Ruthyn is described as having a ‘shifting face, sometimes smirking, but always sinister, in an
unpleasant dream’. Appearances deceive in this novel and reality is obscured, as though a
36
veil has been dragged across the sight. Uncle Silas explores a shifting reality. Is there a
hybrid or double vision at work in such novels dealing with transculturation and assimilation,
novels written by the Anglo-Irish Protestant Ascendancy? To what extent do the authors’
interest in the visual arts—paintings and photography—influence the treatment of the visual
in these texts? How does the decline of the Irish Protestant Ascendancy anticipate more
general ideas developing in modern thought? We will study three novels and one long story
that span a troubled and changing period in Ireland to observe the development of Irish
fiction and—in particular—its treatment of vision.
Course Texts
Sheridan Le Fanu, ‘Carmilla’, In a Glass Darkly (1872) (Oxford)
----------, Uncle Silas; a Tale of Bartram-Haugh (1864) (Penguin)
George Moore, A Drama in Muslin (1886) (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe, 1981)
Edith Œnone Somerville and Martin Ross, The Real Charlotte (1894) (Dublin: A&A Farmar,
1999)
24
Call and Response: African-American Writing
Seminar Leader: Dr Maria Stuart
Beginning with the narratives of ex-slaves (the origin of the black voice within American
Literature), the course will chart the development of African-American writing, focusing on
key moments within African-American cultural history (the Harlem Renaissance, the postwar years, contemporary culture). Central themes will include the following: the influence of
black music upon literature (e.g. the Blues, Jazz, Spirituals), the role of the woman writer
within African-American culture, and the extent to which the black writer seeks to transform
(or transcend?) existing literary genres (e.g. Walter Mosley’s re-writing of the detective
novel). The course will also encourage students to study the writing of several influential
black critics (Houston Baker, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Hazel Carby).
Course Texts
Ralph Ellison: Invisible Man (Penguin)
Toni Morrison: Jazz (Picador)
Walter Mosley: Devil in a Blue Dress (Pan)
Zora Neale Hurston: Their Eyes Were Watching God (Virago)
25
Stories of the Eye: Literature and Visual Representation
Seminar Leader: Dr Simon Swift
In this seminar course we will look at the ways in which writers represent other art forms in
their writing, in particular music, painting, the plastic arts and photography. We will examine
how writers set about depicting acts of reflection on the visual arts and on music, and how
these other art forms help writers to define their own sense of artistic purpose. As part of the
course we will read texts alongside the images and sounds that they refer to and explore the
ways in which literature’s depiction of art, and its interrogation of the idea of the gaze, raises
issues to do with power, eroticism, youth and identity.
Percy Bysshe Shelley, ‘Ozymandias,’ John Keats, ‘On First Looking into Chapman’s
Homer,’ ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn,’ Robert Browning, ‘My Last Duchess.’*
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (Penguin, 2003)
James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Penguin, 2000)
37
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy (Penguin, 1993)
Georges Bataille, Story of the Eye (Penguin, 2001)
W.G. Sebald, Austerlitz (Penguin, 2002)
* All of these poems are collected in the Norton Anthology of English Literature, 7th ed.
26
English Language
Seminar Leader: Dr Christine Thijs
This seminar provides the opportunity to study the English language in practice, mainly at
the level of grammar (morphology and syntax) and stylistics (lexical choice, sentence
structure, cohesion, point of view, reporting speech and thought). You will be gaining a
thorough understanding of the relevant terms, relationships between words and phrases,
functions of the parts of speech, and also some insights as to how and why our language
evolved to its present form. In addition, the skills developed during this seminar will be of
lasting use for your future writing, whether creative or academic.
Set texts:
David Crystal. Rediscover Grammar. Harlow: Addison Wesley Longman, 1988/1996.
Paul Simpson. Language Through Literature. London: Routledge, 1996
Also recommended:
David Crystal. The Stories of English. Allen Lane (an imprint of Penguin Books),
2004. 592pp. ISBN 0-713-99752-4 [publisher's price £25.00;
www.amazon.co.uk £17.50; also available in campus bookshop]
Steven Pinker. The Language Instinct: the New Science of Language and Mind.
Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1995. ISBN 0140175296
Jeremy J. Smith. Essentials of Early English. Routledge: London, 1999. 254pp. ISBN
27
Modern American Poetry
Seminar Leader: Dr Nerys Williams
This course will introduce key movements in twentieth American poetry with close attention
to formal and aesthetic concerns. Initially beginning with aspects of American Modernist
poetry, we will chart the emergence and development of a range of differing 'American'
poetries from 1945 onwards. Close reading of poems will enable us to establish how poetry
investigates and engages with crucial issues such as race, gender, ethnicity and subjectivity.
Attention will also be given to linguistic and textual experimentation and how poems address
in different ways their readers/ audience. Although the course is not an exhaustive survey, it
will allow for some considered reflection on the major aesthetic, cultural and political
preoccupations of each period.
Course Texts
Students are required to purchase and read around the poetry in The Norton Anthology of
Postmodern American Poetry ed Paul Hoover which also includes key essays and manifestos
by poets. Other selections of poetry will be taken from The Norton Anthology of Poetry (1st
year required textbook)
38
SECOND SEMESTER
ENGLISH SEMINAR OPTIONS
ENG 3019
28
Contemporary English Fiction
Seminar Leader: Dr John Brannigan
Course description and text(s) as for First Semester, Course No. 01.
29
Canadian Fiction in English
Seminar Leader: Dr Ron Callan
This course will seek to define some of the patterns which emerge in Canadian writing in
English and which contribute to a sense of Canadian literature and nationhood. We will
concentrate on three novels. Each accounts for the complexity of Canadian culture, history,
landscape, politics, and society; each relates the stories of individuals and communities
seeking to come to terms with their lives, their experience of and version of Canada.
As there are limited secondary sources available, students will be encouraged to develop a
range of responses to the novels.
Margaret Laurence.
Alistair MacLeod.
Rudy Wiebe.
The Diviners. 1974. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1993.
No Great Mischief. 1999. London: Vintage, 2001.
The Temptations of Big Bear. 1973. Athens, Ohio: Swallow, 2000.
Recommended Reading:
To be announced in class.
30
Canadian Fiction in English
Seminar Leader: Dr Ron Callan
Course description and text(s) as for Second Semester, Course No. 29.
31
“Eighteenth-century verse in English: Verse from Ireland”
Seminar Leader: Professor Andrew Carpenter
This course will consider the verse of eighteenth-century Ireland – not just that of Swift and
his contemporaries but also the energetic and entertaining anonymous verse of the age.
Particular attention will be paid to the intriguing and little-studied verse of Irish-printed
chapbooks of the latter part of the century. The course is a self-contained one, but is likely to
be of interest to students who have taken “Eighteenth-century verse in English: Verse from
England” in the first semester or who have some knowledge of eighteenth-century Ireland.
Course Text: Verse in English from Eighteenth-Century Ireland, ed. Andrew Carpenter
(Cork: Cork University Press, 1998).
39
32
Twentieth-Century Epic and Romance: The Lord of the Rings and
Gormenghast
Seminar Leader: Dr Neil Cartlidge
This course is a study in the reception of the medieval and post-medieval traditions of “Epic
and Romance”. In particular, it examines the very different responses to these traditions by
two of the most individual and distinctive novelists of the twentieth century, J.R.R. Tolkien
and Mervyn Peake. Both write what has come to be called
“fantasy”, but there is nothing culturally arbitrary about their work. Indeed, both The Lord of
the Rings and Gormenghast are constantly shaped and disciplined by their reference to a
range of distinct literary inheritances. Students taking this course will be invited to look at
how Tolkien and Peake used this intense creative engagement
with the cultural past in order to make compelling literature for the
present.
Course Texts: J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (any edition);
Meryn Peake, Titus Groan and Gormenghast (i.e. the first two novels of the
Gormenghast trilogy, which is usually sold as a single volume, e.g. by
Vintage)
N.B. -- The amount of reading expected of students taking this course
is very large, though neither Peake nor Tolkien is particularly difficult to read. If you
haven’t already read The Lord of the Rings, you are advised not to put this course high on
your list of seminar choices. You will be expected to have read the first two books of the
Gormenghast trilogy before the seminar series starts.
33
Between Europe and America: Contemporary Irish Poetry
Seminar Leader: Mr Harry Clifton
Ireland, though geographically European, is poetically located in mid-Atlantic, between two
contending zones of influence. This course will explore, through European and American as
well as Irish texts, the pressures and choices faced by individual Irish poets, both men and
women, caught stylistically, politically and in terms of image and value systems, between
Old and New worlds.
Suggested Reading (to be supplemented)
Eavan Boland, Collected Poems, Carcanet
Derek Mahon, The Hudson Letter, Gallery Press.
Paul Muldoon, Moy Sand and Gravel, Faber and Faber.
Eilean ni Chuilleanan, The Girl who Married the Reindeer, Gallery Press.
Peter Sirr, Selected Poems, Gallery Press (due in November).
Supplementary material, photocopied, will be available through the Students’ Union, at the
start of the second semester.
34
Between Europe and America: Contemporary Irish Poetry
Seminar Leader: Mr Harry Clifton
Course description and text(s) as above under No. 33.
40
35
Wise Virgins
Seminar Leader: Professor T. P. Dolan
In the Middle Ages many women and men adopted the solitary life in order to obtain spiritual
perfection. Many handbooks were written for them, giving advice on how such recluses could pass
the long, uneventful hours of every day. The most famous handbook written in English is called
“Ancrene Wisse”, which mean “Guidebook for Anchoresses” (a female recluse was called an
anchoress, and a male recluse was called an anchorite). This course studies the text and context of
Ancrene Wisse. It gives us a unique insight into the lives of thirteenth-century women and raises
many questions about feminism, religious politics, education, and other cultural matters, as well as
demonstrating the extraordinary power and versatility of the English Language at an early stage in its
history.
Course Text and Background:
Selected Reading:
Ancrene Wisse, ed. from Corpus Christi College Cambridge MS 402, by J.R.R. Tolkien.
Ancrene Wisse, Parts Six and Seven, ed. G. Shepherd.
Ancrene Riwle, Introduction and Part I, ed. R. W. Ackerman, & R. Dahood.
Ancrene Wisse: Guide for Anchoresses, trans. Hugh White.
E.J. Dobson, The Origins of Ancrene Wisse.
Bella Millett, An Annotated Critical Bibliography of Ancrene Wisse.
T.P. Dolan and V.J. Scattergood, “Middle English Prose”, in The New Pelican Guide to English
Literature, Vol. I.1, pp. 103-120.
Sally Thompson, Women Religious: The Founding of English Nunneries after the Norman Conquest.
Elizabeth Robertson, Early English Devotional Prose and the Female Audience.
A.N. Wilson, Wise Virgin (a novel, first published in 1982, which refers to Ancrene Wisse, among
other medieval English writings dealing with virginity, love, human relationships–married and
celibate, as well as the difficulties involved in editing and translating medieval texts).
36
Wise Virgins
Seminar Leader: Professor T. P. Dolan
Course description and text(s) as for Second Semester, Course No. 35.
37
Joyce's Dubliners
Seminar Leader: Mr Brian Donnelly
Course description and text(s) as for First Semester, Course No. 4.
38
Memory and Identity in Contemporary Irish Poetry
Seminar Leader: Ms Borbála Faragó
Course description and text(s) as for First Semester, Course No. 5.
39
Irish Stories
Seminar Leader: Dr Charlotte Fryatt
Course description and text(s) as for First Semester, Course No. 9.
40
The Dramatic Monologue: a study in genre, criticism and context.
Seminar Leader: Ms Ciara Hogan
Course description and text(s) as for First Semester, Course No. 10.
41
41
Joyce’s Ulysses
Seminar Leader: Professor Declan Kiberd
Course description and text(s) as for First Semester, Course No. 12.
42
Oscar Wilde
Seminar Leader: Dr Jarlath Killeen
Course description and text(s) as for First Semester, Course No. 13.
43
Staging the Celtic Tiger
Seminar Leader: Dr P.J.Mathews
Course description and text(s) as for First Semester, Course No. 16.
44
Monstrous Speculations: the evolution of Horror and Science Fiction
Seminar Leader: Gerardine Meaney
Course description and text(s) as for First Semester, Course No. 17.
45
Shakespearean Tragedy: Forms of Representation
Seminar Leader: Prof. Christopher Murray
This course will look in detail at six Shakespearean tragedies, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet,
Macbeth, King Lear, Coriolanus and Antony and Cleopatra. Against a background of
Renaissance ideas, moral doctrines and political events, the plays will be explored for their
contemporary significance and theatrical self-awareness. Specifically, four issues will be
explored: Fortune, Fate, Responsibility and Theatrum Mundi or the stage as metaphor for the
world.
By ‘representation’ in this context is meant how narrative is used on stage to maximise
theatrical and dramatic effects. This area involves reading the texts in two basic ways: as a
succession of individual scenes (situations) and as aggregates of cumulative meaning, which
may be problematised.
The seminars will look for ways to explore the plays effectively along the lines outlined and
will demand a high degree of analysis and discussion of technique.
Objectives: to find ways of understanding the major tragedies which do justice to the
complexity of the texts and which at the same time situate those texts in cultural and
performance contexts.
Requirements: good preparation for each seminar and a commitment to discussion. There is
also an essay requirement: a topic showing individual reflection and research on one or more
of the issues raised by the course.
Course Texts:
any edition of the plays which has notes and an introduction EXCEPT a Leaving Cert edition
(which tends to oversimplify and close down significant issues in need of more open-ended
exploration). The best single editions are the Arden, the Cambridge and the Oxford.
In addition: Marlowe, Tamburlaine, Part I. (any edition).
42
46
Herstory: African American Women Writers Write Back
Seminar Leader: Ms Ana Nunes
Since the beginning of the twentieth century, African American writers have acknowledged
the importance of the history of slavery; however, only in recent times have they travelled
“as an extensive and articulate group (…) all the way back to origins and record[ed] their
insights in distinctive forms designed for a black audience” (Houston A. Baker Jr.). This
seminar will focus on the distinct ways in which African American women novelists deal
with the past. We will explore the relationship between history and self; the strategies used to
recover a poorly recorded history and a predominantly oral heritage. Special attention will be
paid to the use of black lore, story and song as a means of recovering and accessing the past.
Required Reading:
Margaret Walker, Jubilee [1969] (Houghton Mifflin Co, 1999)
Gayl Jones. Corregidora [1975] (Serpent's Tail, 2000) / Beacon Press, 1987)
Sherley Anne WilliaMsDessa Rose [1986] (Virago, 1998).
47
Irish Gothic Fiction
Seminar Leader: Dr Helen O’Connell
Course description and text(s) as for First Semester, Course No. 19.
48
The Poetess: The representation of the literary woman in the nineteenth century
Seminar Leader: Dr Michelle O’Connell
Course description and text(s) as for First Semester, Course No. 20.
49
Late Medieval Drama: The Interludes
Seminar Leader: Dr Niamh Pattwell
Course description and text(s) as for First Semester, Course No. 22.
50
The Drama Of Brian Friel
Seminar Leader: Dr Anthony Roche
With the exception of Beckett (who remains a special case), Brian Friel is the most important
Irish playwright in terms both of dramatic achievement and cultural importance to have
emerged in the second half of the twentieth century. We will examine the occasions on which
Friel plays had a worldwide impact: Philadelphia, Here I Come! (1964), his innovative
treatment of the divided feelings of a young Donegal man on the eve of emigration;
Translations (1980), a play of many languages, which inaugurated the Field Day Theatre
project in Derry; and Dancing at Lughnasa (1990), where Irish women moved centre stage.
But we will also take the opportunity to read other Friel plays no less deserving of attention.
The plays will be considered in their own right; but students will be expected to develop an
understanding of Friel’s concerns, techniques and relevance as they read all of the assigned
plays, suggested secondary reading, do an in-class presentation and write a term essay. Any
opportunity to see a production of a Friel play should be welcomed.
Course Texts:
Brian Friel, Plays: One, introd. Seamus Deane (Faber)
Brian Friel, Plays: Two, introd. Christopher Murray (Faber)
A list of secondary reading will be supplied.
43
51
Stories of the Eye: Literature and Visual Representation
Seminar Leader: Dr Simon Swift
Course description and text(s) as for First Semester, Course No. 25.
52
Magic and Miracles in Anglo-Saxon Written Sources
Seminar Leader: Dr Christine Thijs
This seminar gives an opportunity to explore the evidence for perceptions of, and approaches
to, magic and miracles in written sources, and the often problematic distinction between the
two. The selected Old English texts include hagiographic accounts, recipes, charms & spells,
remedies, historiography, poetic meditations on religious themes, encyclopaedic and
philosophical writing, and are selected for the various angles they offer:
* Selected passages from the Old English version of Bede’s Ecclesiastical
History of the English People (miracles and other remarkable events
dating from the early days of Anglo-Saxon Christianity, narrated by the
famous scholar the Venerable Bede within a historiographical setting)
* Bald’s Leechbook (book of plausible and less plausible medicines and
remedies)
* Selected passages from the Old English version of Gregory the Great’s
Dialogues (a selection of trivial, touching, amazing, and lifethreatening adventures from the lives of Italian saints)
* ‘Orpheus and Euridyce’ and ‘Ulysses and Circe’ in Alfred’s prose
translation of Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy (Alfred’s version of
these classical stories, championing the power of music and witches)
* Old English Wonders of the East (an encyclopaedic text with a scientific
flair, packed with unlikely and outrageously unbelievable “facts”)
* Old English Judith (an extremely gifted Anglo-Saxon poet’s adaptation of
passage from the Old Testament book of Judith, in which a vulnerable
woman saves her people by tricking the main enemy warlord)
* Ælfric’s Life of St Edmund (the story of this pious Anglo-Saxon king’s
sufferings at the hands of the Vikings – which included being shot with
so many arrows that he looked like a hedgehog – and his talking Coordinator
in the woods)
* ... (further texts may be added) ...
Each week you will need to prepare your own translation of the following week’s Old
English text (a detailed course plan will be finalised in the first session). In addition the
students’ input involves secondary reading on the topics, and working in pairs or trios. Each
week a group will present their own translation and analysis of a text in relation to the
treatment of the magic and or miracles that occur therein. These students are then also
expected to instigate a whole group round table discussion by offering key questions and
issues for consideration.
Set texts:
Kieckhefer, Richard. Magic in the Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1990.
(continued on next page)
44
Recommended Reading:
Joynes, Andrew. Medieval Ghost Stories. An Anthology of Miracles, Marvels and
Prodigies. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2003. ISBN 0-85115-948-6
Keith, Thomas. Religion and the Decline of Magic. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971
Bennet, Gillian. Traditions and Belief: Women and the Supernatural.
Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1987
Recommended grammars and dictionary:
Peter S. Baker. Introduction to Old English. Oxford: Blackwell, 2003
OR
Bruce Mitchell and Fred C. Robinson. A Guide to Old English. 6th ed. Oxford:
Blackwell, 2001. ISBN 0-631-22636-2
This book will be used for Old English Judith and Ælfric’s Life of St Edmund.
It also contains a glossary that can be used as translation aid for other Old
English texts.
A secondary reading list and photocopies of the Old English texts will be provided in class.
53
Mean Streets and Promiscuous Blondes: Hard-Boiled Fictions and American
Dreams
Seminar Leader: Mr Brian Thomson
“Mean Streets and Promiscuous Blondes: Hard Boiled Fictions and American Dreams” will
explore one of the most potent and influential genres in twentieth century American literature
and film. After examining the formal characteristics associated with the genre, we will
consider its cultural roots in the Protestant work ethic and the experience of the Great
Depression. Through a selection of readings we will examine the terse poetry embraced by
the likes of Hemmingway and Hammett, the role of hard-boiled fiction in Cold War
ideology, and the construction of feminine identity in a self-consciously masculine genre.
We will also look at the way the United States’ engagements at home and abroad
transformed the ways that the genre could be realized both in literature and in films like
Roman Polanski’s Chinatown. Throughout we shall attempt to better understand why so
many American writers employed hard-boiled values, attitude, and style in the quest for
personal and national self-definition. At the end of the course we will analyze the extent to
which hard-boiled conventions continue to inform the stories America tells about itself to
itself.
Reading List
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Penguin also available online at:
<http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200041.txt>
Ernest Hemmingway, The First Forty-Nine Stories, Arrow
Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest, Orion
Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep, Penguin
Raymond Chandler, The Simple Art of Murder, Vintage; also available on-line at:
<http://www.adamranson.freeserve.co.uk/The%20Art%20of%20Murder%20%5Bv6.0%5D.PDF>
[Optional] Robert Towne, Chinatown, (Screenplay), Faber and Faber (ISBN:0571202241);
also available on-line at: <http://www.script-o-rama.com/>
(continued overleaf)
45
Other Requirements
Optional screening: Chinatown, dir. Roman Polanski. If you would rather see it on your
own, the film can be rented at most video stores. As a last resort, you could also read the
THIRD DRAFT of the film script, available at “Drew’s Script-o-Rama” (see above for the
address).
Over the course of the term you will be required to watch at least one episode of Law and
Order and/or one episode of CSI.
54
Modern American Poetry
Seminar Leader: Dr Nerys Williams
Course description and text(s) as for First Semester, Course No. 27.
46
STYLE SHEET
Introduction
The writing of essays at third level differs in several respects from other types of writing (e.g.
compositions, technical reports, newspaper articles, letters). An academic essay is a formal
piece of writing, which means that it must adhere to certain standards in style, argument,
layout and presentation. While your tutor/seminar leader will advise you on matters of style
and argument, this sheet will explain to you what is expected of you in terms of layout and
presentation.
The style required by the School of English is that of the MLA Handbook for Writers of
Research Papers. MLA style is an efficient and accurate way of presenting evidence in a
scholarly essay. As the examples below show, very limited information is provided in the
body of the text. This information is a signpost or key to a full bibliographical listing in a
Works Cited section. Please Note: Citations in the style recommended by MLA (the
use of brackets, etc.) are to be used instead of footnotes and endnotes. See an edition of the
MLA Handbook in the UCD library for information on footnotes and endnotes.
1) General
Before submitting your essay, check this list to ensure that you have done everything that is
expected of you:
 spellings are correct–pay particular attention to proper names (e.g. Spenser, Austen,
Woolf, MacNeice)
 punctuation is clear and aids understanding
 grammar and syntax are correct and clear
 all quotations are accurately transcribed
 titles of books, plays, films, etc. are italicised or underlined
 chapters in books, individual poems not published as books, short stories, essays, articles,
etc. are placed in inverted commas (double quotation marks)
 double-spacing is used throughout your essay (single-spacing is used here to save space)
 the essay is easy to read and leaves room for your tutor’s/seminar leader’s comments—
leave a large left-hand margin
 all relevant details are included on the cover-sheet provided (your name, tutor’s/seminar
leader’s name, essay title, etc.)
2) List of works cited
One key difference between the kinds of writing you will have done before and third level
essays is the need to provide sources for the texts you quote and discuss, including secondary
material. In order to do this, you must keep a record of all the materials you have consulted in
preparing your essay and organise them into a Works Cited* section. This should be ready
BEFORE you write your essay so that you can use it to give sources for your citations (see 3
below). You must follow the format below in all particulars, including punctuation,
underlining and indentation. The Works Cited section should be arranged in alphabetical
order by author’s name and placed at the end of your essay on a separate page.
*A Works Cited section is a list of all primary and secondary material cited in your essay
(this may include non-print sources).
How to list a book in a Works Cited section:
Author’s name with surname listed first. Title of the book. Ed. followed by name of editor(s),
if applicable. Place: publisher, date.
Eliot, George. Middlemarch. Ed. David Carroll. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1988.
47
How to list a work in an anthology in a Works Cited section:
Author’s name with surname listed first. “Title.” Title of anthology. Ed. followed by names
of editor(s) if applicable. Place: publisher, date. Range of page numbers.
Plath, Sylvia. “Tulips.” The Norton Anthology of Poetry. 3rd ed. Ed. Alexander Allison et
al. New York: Norton, 1983. 1348-9.
How to list an article in a journal in a Works Cited section:
Author’s name with surname listed first. “Title of the article.” Title of Periodical volume
number (date): range of page numbers.
McLeod, Randall. “Unemending Shakespeare’s Sonnet 111.” Studies in English
Literature 21 (1981): 75-96.
How to list an essay in a book in a Works Cited section:
Author’s name with surname listed first. “Title of essay.” Title of book. Ed. followed by
name of editor(s) if applicable. Place: publisher, date. Range of page numbers.
Wayne, Valerie. “Historical Differences: Misogyny and Othello.” The Matter of
Difference: Materialist Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare. Ed. Valerie Wayne. London:
Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991. 153-79.
3) Linking your citations to the Works Cited section
Your quotations should be relevant and support your argument by providing a specific
illustration of a point or an idea. There are basically three types of citation which will require
supporting references:
a) Direct quotation should always be precise in all details (including spelling,
punctuation, and lineation, where relevant—most often for poetry and sometimes for
drama), and include an accurate page or pages reference.
b) Close paraphrase and citation of information should also be accurate, and should be
accompanied by a page or pages reference.
c) Loose paraphrase or general ascriptions of points of view should be accompanied by
a reference to the source or sources. Even though you have not used a direct quotation
or a close paraphrase, you must make it clear that the argument comes from a
particular source or sources by listing the book or article, etc. (or the specific chapter
in the book or section of the article, etc.) from which you have drawn the argument.
If your Works Cited section is correct and complete, placing accurate references for
quotations and arguments in the body of your essay will be simple. Quotations must be exact
in every detail. The citation of the source should follow the quotation and must be placed in
brackets. Remember, not to cite your sources exposes you to the charge of
PLAGIARISM which may result in deduction of marks and/or disciplinary action. The
full citations for the examples given here can be found in section 4, set out as they would be
in a full Works Cited section.
i.
How to quote passages from PROSE and key your quotations to a Works Cited
section:
Short quotations (less than 4 lines of prose) should be placed in quotation marks within the
text:
Middlemarch’s opening sentence is simple, but effective: “Miss Brooke had that kind of
beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress” (Eliot 7).
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This also applies to secondary sources which are a significant part of your essay:
Michael McKeon suggests that the “origins of the English novel occur at the end point
of a long history of “novelistic usage” (19).
Longer quotations should be indented from the margin and do not require quotation marks in
most cases:
In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses a fragmented style to
convey her central character’s mental fragility. For example:
There were greenhouses, too, but they are all broken now.
There was legal trouble, I believe, something about the heirs and co-heirs;
anyhow,
the place has been empty for years.
That spoils my ghostliness, I am afraid, but I don’t care–there is something
strange about the house–I can feel it. (155)
NB. As some sentences introduce quotations by identifying the source, there is no need to
spell it out again in the citation (see the previous two examples).
ii.
How to quote passages from POETRY and key your quotations to a Works Cited
section:
Short quotations–up to 3 lines—may be included within the text. Parenthetical citations
should list LINE numbers (if available) and not page references. The initial citation for the
poem should include the word “line” (or “lines”) to establish that the numbers designate
lines:
Ben Jonson quickly introduces us to the twin themes of his elegy on Shakespeare by
referring to his “book and fame” (“To the Memory of My Beloved” line 2)
As this is the initial reference to the poem, the word “line” is included in the citation.
Longer quotations must be indented from the margin. You must follow the layout of the
poem from which you are quoting.
Jonson signals the fact that Shakespeare is exceptional by using exclamation marks and
by suggesting that he is the best of poets:
I therefore will begin. Soul of the age!
The applause! Delight! The wonder of our stage!
My Shakespeare, rise; I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie
A little further to make thee a room: (“To the Memory of My Beloved”
17-21)
As this is the second reference to the poem, the word “line” is omitted from the citation.
iii.
How to quote passages from DRAMA and key your quotations to a Works Cited
section:
The same rules on length apply here as with poetry and prose (above). However, if quoting
dialogue between two or more characters, you must indent the quotation, and list the
characters’ names, followed by a period (full stop):
Throughout Othello Iago proves to be a master manipulator of language, using
insinuation and inference to plant suspicion in Othello’s mind:
49
IAGO. Ha! I like not that.
OTHELLO.
What dost thou say?
IAGO. Nothing, my lord; or if–I know not what.
OTHELLO. Was not that Cassio parted from my wife?
IAGO. Cassio, my lord? No, sure I cannot think it
That he would steal away so guilty-like,
Seeing you coming.
OTHELLO.
I do believe 'twas he. (3.3.34-40)
The citation must include act (3.3.34-40), scene (3.3.34-40) and line numbers (3.3.34-40), as
in the example above.
NOTE: when you quote from Shakespeare or any other dramatist make sure that you state the
edition used. This will appear in your Works Cited section as below. It should always be a
“reputable” edition rather than, for example, a schools’ edition.
iv.
How to quote from Online sources and key your quotations to the Works Cited
section:
The example below includes a quotation from a book. However, the source of the quotation
is not a printed book but an electronic version online.
Harriet Jacobs begins her account of her life with a dramatic image of childhood
innocence: “I WAS [sic] born a slave; but I never knew it till six years of happy
childhood had passed away” (Jacobs ch.1).
Note the accuracy of the quotation—the use of [sic] indicates that you are quoting accurately
from the text and that the capitalised “WAS” is not your typographical error.
This is a text taken from a web site. In order to cite it correctly you must enter information as
detailed as that required for a print source and listed above. However, your source is the web
site and you must seek to include:
a) date of the last update of the site
b) date you accessed the site
c) address of the site, enclosed in angle brackets, < > (see example in the Works Cited
section below)
If the information you require is not displayed on the site, include what is listed. In doing so,
you are making your sources available to your reader as you make printed books available by
listing editions and publication details. The “date of access” is important. Sites can be
changed relatively easily and your tutor/seminar leader might open a site which has changed
significantly from the one you used a day or two earlier. Finally, it is advisable to print the
material you use from a web site so that you can verify your source if the site cannot be
located by your tutor/seminar leader.
4) Works Cited (for the examples in section 3, above)
Eliot, George. Middlemarch. Ed. David Carroll. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1988.
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “The Yellow Wallpaper.” The Oxford Book of American Short
Stories. Ed.
Joyce Carol Oates. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1994. 154-69.
Jacobs, Harriet. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself. Boston, 1861. 18
Dec. 1997.
25 July 2002 <http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/JACOBS/hjhome.htm>
50
Jonson, Ben. “To the Memory of My Beloved, the Author Mr William Shakespeare.” The
Norton
Anthology of Poetry. Ed. Alexander Allison et al. 3rd ed. New York:
Norton, 1983. 239-40.
McKeon, Michael. The Origins of the English Novel, 1600-1740. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
UP, 1987.
Shakespeare, William. Othello. Ed. Norman Sanders. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1984.
NOTE: The bold-faced type in Sections 2 and 3 is used for emphasis and is not required in
your work.
A few further points:
 If you are quoting more than one text by the same author, you must
i.
make clear which text is being used. For example, if you are using two novels by
George Eliot, your citations must make a clear distinction between the two:
(Eliot, Middlemarch, 55) or (Eliot, Mill on the Floss, 78).
ii. list texts by the same author by alphabetizing the titles in your Works Cited section,
using the following format (definite and indefinite articles are not considered in
alphabetizing):
Eliot, George. Middlemarch. Ed. David Carroll. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1988.
---. The Mill on the Floss. Ed. A. S. Byatt. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979.
 You may abbreviate titles for convenience in your citations, but never in the Works Cited
section. For example, The Mill on the Floss could be listed as Mill, or Jonson’s “To the
Memory of My Beloved, the Author Mr William Shakespeare” could be listed as
“Memory.” However, abbreviations must clearly identify the text being quoted.

Some texts may come from collections or anthologies. Rather than writing out the full
details for each item in the Works Cited section, you could give one entry for the
anthology and then key the other entries to it. For example, if you have quoted from
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Kate Chopin’s “The Storm” in
your essay, your Works Cited section should list the texts in the following way:
Chopin, Kate. “The Storm.” Oates 130-35.
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Oates 154-69.
Oates, Joyce Carol, ed. The Oxford Book of American Short Stories. Oxford:
Oxford UP, 1994.

In preparing your essays, you should make full use of the resources on offer in the
Library. These include the Library’s web site. Students of English will find a range of
relevant information and texts available on the Electronic Library site. For example,
you might make use of the following:
 Oxford English Dictionary (OED)
 Annotated Bibliography of English (ABES)
 Modern Language Association Bibliography (MLA)
Primary texts and scholarly articles are available online on the following sites:
 JSTOR
 LION
 SwetsNet Navigator
51
To access these sites, you should log on to the Library’s home page:
<http://www.ucd.ie/library/>
If you have any questions about any aspect of this “Style Sheet,” you should ask your
tutor/seminar leader for guidance and advice. You should also familiarise yourself with
Joseph Gibaldi’s MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 6th ed. (New York:
Modern Language Association, 2003).
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