English 18a Irish Literature:
the Peasantry to the Pogues
Provisional Syllabus
Professor: John Plotz (plotz@brandeis.edu)
Fall 2014 M W Th 11-12
Office hours M Th 12-1 Rabb 264
This class explores Irish poetry, fiction, and drama in English. The story runs
from that literature’s roots among subjugated peasants and Anglo-Irish aristocracy to the
subversive role that variations on folktales and folk music still play today. The Pogues
and the singer-songwriters of Once are as important to this class as the Nobel-winning
poet Seamus Heaney.
Following texts on famine and rebellion by Jonathan Swift and Maria Edgeworth,
we will read the poetry of W. B. Yeats and the works of Lady Gregory and J. M. Synge
as representatives of Ireland's literary renaissance; in the writing of Oscar Wilde and
Flann O’Brien we’ll find a dark, parodic underside that lurks within that renaissance.
The interplay between political nationalism and international modernism will frame our
encounters with the fiction of James Joyce, Elizabeth Bowen, and Flann O’Brien, and
with the drama of Samuel Beckett. The prominence of these major figures in an Irish
literary landscape will, in turn, frame our encounter with more recent voices in Irish
literature, including the poets Heaney and Paul Dorcan, dramatists Brian Friel and Martin
McDonagh, and the punk-inspired folk-music revival. Also includes contemporary films,
among them responses/adaptations to earlier Irish works.
Unless otherwise noted, anything that is not a book sold at the bookstore (see list
below) is available on Latte: [recommended works] are marked [with brackets]. Books
sold at the bookstore (which may be purchased elsewhere as long as you use the same
edition) may not be read online. You must bring a physical copy of the book itself to
class, and be prepared to show the markings, underlinings and notes that you have made
as you read.
Intro
8/28,
Introduction: What is Anglo-Irish literature? Why Study it?
Online/handout: Yeats, Kavanagh, Heaney
Week 1
9/1 No Class
9/3
Homi Bhabha “Of Mimicry and Man”
Robert Emmet, his final Speech from the Dock
Thomas Moore, two poems on Robert Emmet
Jonathan Swift, “A Modest Proposal”; [[recc: “Description of a City Shower”]]
Chapter 1 of Modern Ireland (all to be found on LATTE)
[recc: Moore and Sussman on Swift]
9/4 poetry.TBD
Week 2
9/8 Maria Edgeworth, Castle Rackrent Introduction (vii-xxxvi); and pp. 9-37
(be sure to read all footnotes and glossary entries)
Seamus Deane, “Silence and Eloquence”
First latte post due at 10 p.m Thursday.
9/10 Castle Rackrent, 38-97
Declan Kiberd, on Castle Rackrent from Irish Classics (
[Michael Gamer, “Romance of Real Life”; optional on Latte]
[please read as much of Modern Ireland as you can by the end of week 2]
9/11 Getting to Know Eire: look at the collection of Field Day translations on Latte, and
the pre-1850 poets in The New Oxford Book of Irish Verse. Prepare one poem to present
in class; start by telling us one thing about the poet, the context, the form or the language
of the poem we can’t tell just from listening].
Week 3:
9/15 The Famine
Documents, p 131-181 in The Irish Famine, edited Peter Gray ;
Catherine Gallagher and Stephen Greenblatt, “The potato in the materialist
imagination”
James Murphy, “Canonicity” ;
First paper topics distributed
9/17 folktales and collecting:
Lady Gregory, from Gods and Fighting Men [latte only]
From Roland Barthes, “Pleasure of the Text”
[Optional] [Matthew Arnold, “On the Study of Celtic Literature” ]
[Vince Pecora (VS) on Arnold]
[Cairns and Richards, “Writing Ireland” ch 3:” An essentially feminine race”]
[Douglas Hyde, “The Necessity for De-Anglicising Ireland”]
9/18 Yeats, Red Hanrahan stories tbd…
Week 4:
9/22 Yeats, Hawk’s Well, and Cathleen Ni Houlihan (MCID 3-11, 20-28)
Seamus Deane, from “Short History of Irish Literature” [latte only]
9/23 [Brandeis Thursday J M Synge, Riders to the Sea (MCID, 58-69)
[you should be finished with Modern Ireland by now]
9/24 Yeats, Synge, concuded
first paper due at 4 pm.
Week 5:
9/29 Yeats, poetry tbd
10/1 Oscar Wilde from The Happy Prince
10/2 Wilde, Yeats, concluded
[bibliography assignment distributed]
Week 6:
10/6 James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (pp.tbd)
Georg Simmel, “Metropolis and Mental Life” and “The Stranger”
10/8 Joyce, Portrait (pp.tbd)
Week 7:
10/13 Portrait, (to end); “The Dead”
10/14 : from Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake
Week 8:
10/20
Elizabeth Bowen, Last September 1-150
[Walter Benjamin, from “On Some motifs in Baudelaire” 155-176]
Virginia Woolf from “Modern Novels” (1919);
[over the weekend please watch the film on Latte]
10/22 Last September 150-303
10/23 Bowen concluded
Jed Esty, “The Last September and the Antidevelopmental Plot”
film of Last September [annotated bibliography due]
Week 9:
10/27Samuel Beckett, Murphy 1-155
10/29 Beckett, Murphy 156-end
10/30 Michel Foucault, “What is an Author?” and additional pieces on Beckett on latte
Week 10
11/3 Flann O’Brien Third Policeman (7-49)
11/5 O’Brien (50-143)
11/6 O’Brien (144-200)
[final research topic—likely building on bibliography—due]
Week 11:
11/10 Brian Friel, Translations
11/12 Friel,
Declan Kiberd, Richard Russell on Friel
11/13 Seamus Heaney (selections tba); Neil Corcoran article
Week 13:
11/17 Martin McDongah, Cripple of Inishman (whole play)
11/19 Robert Flaherty, Man of Aran]
11/20 McDonagh, Cripple
workshopping final paper
11/24 Contemporary music/poetry scene: Stiff little fingers, repalcemetns, etc.
Dick Hebdige, from Subculture: The Meaning of Style (1979)
Simon Frith, from “Formalism Realism and Lesiure: The Case of punk” (1980)
[film: Once]
THANSGIVING: NO CLASS NOVEMBER 26/27
Week 14:
(readings/viewings/projects to be determined depending on class interests; options
discussed in mid-November)
12/1
12/3
12/4
12/8 Final Class
Final Paper due 4 pm
Course Expectations:
Learning Goals:
By the end of the course you should:
Have experienced a range of literary work across different genres by Irish writers;
Be familiar with the major themes of those writers and of Irish writing in general;
Be able to relate these writers to each other in a specifically Irish context;
Understand and write about the contribution these writers made to the formation of
modern Irish identity and world literature.
Latte Posts Each student, every week, will be posting a comment about your reading
experiences. So this is a sort of a reading journal, but one that develops in interaction
with your classmates’ contributions.
2.A brief response to each week’s reading, either following another student’s
thread or striking out on your own, each Wednesday night at 10 pm (preferably earlier).
Those responses will be ungraded, but you are expected to read all the postings for any
given week. You must post one response each week: they form a significant part of your
grade.
Papers: There are only three graded papers (aside from the blog assignment); paper
assignments will be distributed well in advance. I am happy to look at drafts on any
assignment (including the long blog entry) so long as they are received by FIVE days
before the assignment is due. (I will read and respond e-mailed drafts in Word, and
respond electronically.)
1. a short close-reading paper (4-6pp), due Sept 24. Rewrites encouraged after
feedback.
2. Annotated critical bibliography (details to follow); due October 23
3. A longer paper: Proposal due November 6
Final paper due December 12.
All papers due in hard copy at 4 pm on the given day, in my box in the English
department Rabb Hall 144.
Rewrites are welcome on the first paper, and we urge you to visit the Brandeis Writing
Center in the Goldfarb Library (x64885) for help at any time during the semester. Papers
should be original explorations of the material presented in class. What I mainly hope to
see is well structured arguments about issues raised in class, supported by careful close
reading of the texts we have read together. A successful paper will involve clear
exposition of your own ideas and a reliable account of the textual evidence that leads you
to your inferences. (Please see me for an explanation of grading criteria, if you are
interested.) When appropriate, your papers should make use of secondary sources or
other primary sources from outside the classroom: I will be happy to suggest suitable
additional reading or other material, depending on the direction that your interests take
you. I will return typed comments to you with every paper, and will happily respond to
drafts handed in up to five days before a paper is due.
Grading:
Papers: 65 % (first 20%, critical bibliography 15%, second 30%)
Class Participation: 35%
(latte weekly contributions: 15-20%; in-class participation: 15-20%)
[Unexcused absences and days without books will be factored in; three unexcused
absences may result in a substantially lowered grade.]
Books: are available at the Brandeis bookstore: please obtain the particular edition listed
below: this is partly so we can be on the same page in class discussion (a very important
consideration), but there also crucial editorial decisions (and sometimes vital
supplementary material) in these editions that will be important for our understanding of
the books.You must bring the book/sourcebook for a given day’s reading to class.
Book List
Maria Edgeworth, Castle Rackrent (Oxford, 0199537550)
Semia Paseta Modern Ireland, A Very Short Introduction (Oxford 19-280167-8)
WB Yeats, Poetry Drama and prose (Norton, 0393974979)
Elizabeth Bowen, The Last September (Anchor, 0385720149)
James Joyce Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Oxford, 0199536449)
Flann O’Brien The Third Policeman (Dalkey 156478214X)
Samuel Beckett, Murphy (Grove, 9780802144454)
Martin McDonagh, The Cripple of Inishman (0822216639)
Modern and Contemporary Irish Drama (Norton Critical Editions 0393932435)
New Oxford Book of Irish Verse ed Thomas Kinsella (Oxford, 0192801929)