Senior Freshman Options
2012 – 2013
Comedy and Carnival in Medieval and Renaissance Literature
Brendan O’Connell
Senior Freshman Option
This course examines the rich vein of comedy that runs through the
literature of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, from Chaucer to
Shakespeare. Untroubled by modern sensibilities or censorship, medieval
and early modern writers revel in a carnivalesque humour that runs
counter to modern expectations of the period. Profound social upheaval
led to the development of new literary traditions; the courtly romance is
mocked in a number of popular romances in which Sir Gawain is faced
with ludicrous challenges and absurd social situations. A new breed of
hero – the outlaw – gains prominence in texts such as the Tale of
Gamelyn and the Robin Hood ballads. The emergence of the bawdy
fabliau also challenged the cultural dominance of Romance: indeed,
Chaucer’s raucous Miller’s Tale serves in part as the comic deflation of the
Knight’s Tale by a drunken churl. Many of these texts centre on the
volatile relationship between the sexes: the irrepressible Wife of Bath
revels in her triumphs over men, while the reader of Dunbar’s Tretis
eavesdrops on a group of ladies who tell eye-watering stories of male
sexual inadequacy and the wiles of women. Drawing on Bakhtin’s theory
of the Carnivalesque, this course will trace the development of English
comedy against the backdrop of unprecedented social change and
upheaval that engendered these raucous assaults on orthodoxy and
authority.
If you have any queries about this course, please feel free to email me at
oconneb2@tcd.ie.
Lecture Schedule:
Week 1:
Introduction
Week 2:
Geoffrey Chaucer, The Miller’s Tale
Week 3:
Geoffrey Chaucer, The Summoner’s Tale
Week 4:
A Gest of Robyn Hode
Week 5:
The Tale of Gamelyn
Week 6:
Sir Gawain and the Carle of Carlisle
Week 7:
Reading Week
Week 8:
Geoffrey Chaucer, The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale
Week 9:
The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle
Week 10:
William Dunbar, The Tretis of Twa Mariit Wemen and the Wedo
Week 11:
John Skelton, The Tunning of Elynour Rummyng
Week 12:
William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew
Bibliography
All primary texts should be read in the original Middle English, and I am
always happy to offer advice to anyone who finds this challenging. When
providing quotations in the assessed essay, modern translations will not
be accepted, so please let me know if you are having any difficulties.
Prescribed Texts:
I’ve included online editions for about half the texts on the course, so you
won’t need to buy lots of texts. A good edition of Chaucer is an essential
purchase, however, and I recommend The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Larry D.
Benson, 3rd edn (Oxford, 2008), or The Canterbury Tales, ed. Jill Mann
(London, 2005). All the Chaucer texts we will read for this course are also
found in the excellent Norton Critical Edition of The Canterbury Tales:
Fifteen Tales and the General Prologue, ed. V.A. Kolve and Glending Olson
(New York: Norton, 2005), but students should note that this is only a
selection of the Tales.
A Gest of Robyn Hode, in Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales, ed.
Stephen Knight and Thomas H. Ohlgren (Kalamazoo: 1997). Available
online:
http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/gest.htm
The Tale of Gamelyn, in Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales, ed. Stephen
Knight and Thomas H. Ohlgren (Kalamazoo: 1997). Available online:
http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/gamelyn.htm
Sir Gawain and the Carle of Carlisle, in Sir Gawain: Eleven Romances and
Tales, ed. Thomas Hahn (Kalamazoo, 1995). Available online:
http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/gawcfrm.htm
The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle, in Sir Gawain: Eleven
Romances and Tales, ed. Thomas Hahn (Kalamazoo, 1995). Available
online:
http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/ragnell.htm
William Dunbar, The Tretis of the Twa Mariit Wemen and the Wedo, in The
Trials and Joys of Marriage, ed. Eve Salisbury (Kalamazoo, 2002).
Available online:
http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/tmtxt.htm
The Tunning of Elinour Rumming, in John Skelton, Selected Poems, ed.
Gerald Hammond (Manchester, 1980). This text can be difficult to find, so
I will ensure copies are available to students before this class.
William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew, ed. G.R. Hibbard
(London: Penguin, 2006).
Secondary Reading
Bakhtin, Mikhail, The Dialogic Imagination, ed. Michael Holquist; trans.
Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (Austin: University of Texas, 1981)
Falvo Heffernan, Comedy in Chaucer and Boccaccio (Cambridge: D.S.
Brewer, 2009)
Gamin, John, Chaucerian Theatricality (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1990)
Hordis, Sandra M., and Paul Hardwick (eds), Medieval English Comedy
(Turnhout: Brepols, 2007)
Kendrick, Laura, Comedy and Control in the Canterbury Tales (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1988)
Perfetti, Lisa, Women and Laughter in Medieval Comic Literature (Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003)
Ruggiers, Paul G. (ed), Versions of Medieval Comedy (Norman OK:
University of Oklahoma Press, 1964)
Strohm, Paul, Social Chaucer (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press,
1989)
Turner, Marion, ‘The Carnivalesque’, in Chaucer: An Oxford Guide, ed.
Steve Ellis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005) pp. 384-399
Northern Irish Literature and the Troubles
Dr Tom Walker
Senior Freshman Option MT
This course will consider the relationship between Northern Irish
Literature and the Troubles from the late 1960s to the mid-1990s. It will
cover poetry, fiction and drama, setting works within their historical and
cultural contexts. Focussing on the relationship between literature, politics
and conflict, it will also cover Northern Irish theatrical and periodical
culture, and debates surrounding the use of various literary modes
including realism, formalism, elegy, myth, translation and
postmodernism.
Week 1. Introduction: Northern Irish Literature before the Troubles
Week 2. Early Poetic Responses: Mahon, Longley
Week 3. Heaney’s North (1975) and its Critics
Week 4. Early Troubles Fiction: Johnston
Week 5. Early Troubles Fiction: MacLaverty
Week 6. Forums for Debate: Friel and Field Day
Week 7. Reading Week
Week 8. Poetry of the 1980s: Muldoon, Carson
Week 9. Further Dramatic Responses: Parker
Week 10. The Uses of Translation
Week 11. Later Troubles Fiction: McNamee
Week 12. Later Troubles Fiction: Madden
Primary Texts
Michael Longley, Collected Poems (Jonathan Cape)
Derek Mahon, Selected Poems (Penguin), Collected Poems or New
Collected Poems (Both Gallery)
Seamus Heaney, Opened Ground: Poems 1966–1996 (Faber– or see
individual collections Wintering Out and North) and The Cure at Troy
(Faber)
Jennifer Johnston, Shadows on our Skin (Headline)
Bernard MacLaverty, Cal (Vintage)
Brian Friel, Plays 1& 2 (Faber – see The Freedom of the City, Translations,
Fathers and Sons, Making History)
Paul Muldoon, Quoof (Faber – repr. in Poems 1968–1998)
Ciaran Carson, The Irish for No (Gallery/Bloodaxe – repr. in Collected
Poems and key poems in selected volume The Ballad of H.M.S Belfast)
Stewart Parker, Northern Star and Pentecost – available in Plays 2
(Metheun)
Eoin MacNamee, Resurrection Man (Picador/Faber)
Deirdre Madden, One by One in the Darkness (Faber)
Background Reading
Paul Bew, Peter Gibbon and Henry Patterson, Northern Ireland 1921–
2001 (2002)
Richard Kirkland, Literature and Culture in Northern Ireland Since 1965
(1996)
Edna Longley, Poetry in the Wars (1986) and The Living Stream (1997)
Peter McDonald, Mistaken Identities (1997)
Marc Mulholland, Northern Ireland: A Very Short Introduction (2002)
Michael Parker, Northern Irish Literature 1956–2006, 2 vols (2007)
Please note that more specific bibliography for individual lectures
will be given out each week
Twentieth-Century Supernatural Literature.
Dr Bernice M. Murphy
Senior Freshman Option MT
This lecture only course will introduce students to the origins and
development of Supernatural Literature throughout the TwentiethCentury. We will study key texts by writers of the Supernatural such as
M.R. James, John Ajvide Lindqvist, William Peter Blatty, David Almond
and Mark Z. Danieleweski. Students will also be introduced to the work of
key critics and theorists dealing with the supernatural as a literary form
and encouraged to consider the ways in which classic supernatural
themes and tropes have been updated in order to reflect modern
anxieties and preoccupations. They also be asked to consider the way in
which supernatural literatures from around the world (the USA, Wales,
Sweden and England) differ in their approach to depicting the
otherworldly and the uncanny.
Learning Outcomes:
On successful completion of this course, the student will be able to:
Demonstrate familiarity with major examples of supernatural literature
from a number of different countries (including Britain, the United States,
and Sweden) and with the historical and cultural factors which inform
these texts
Recognise the origins and development of the modern Supernatural
Literature, and be able to distinguish between major authors and
recurrent generic tropes
Evaluate the position of supernatural literature within popular literature,
and describe the reasons why the genre occupies such an important place
within contemporary popular culture
Week 1: Introducing Supernatural Literature (BM)
Week 2: "The Turn of the Screw" by Henry James (BM)
Week 3: "Casting the Runes" and "Oh Whistle and I'll Come to you My
Lad" by M.R. James and "The Great God Pan" by Arthur Machen. (BM)
Week 4: The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson (BM)
Week 5: The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty (BM)
Week 6: World War Z by Max Brooks (BM)
Week 7: Reading Week
Week 8: Clay by David Almond (Jane Carroll)
Week 9: House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danieleweski (Dr Dara Downey,
extract discussed in lecture to be provided the week before)
Week 10: Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist (Dr Sorcha Ni
Fhlainn)
Week 11: The Supernatural on film: The Orphanage (Screening to be
arranged, BM)
Most of the texts cited here can be found in any decent bookshop. Good
bargains can be had online at the likes of Amazon and Abe Books, and
Hodges Figgis (Dawson St) and Chapters (Parnell St) are also good places
to look.
US Literature in the 20th Century
Professor Stephen Matterson
Senior Freshman Option MT
This option offers a selected survey of some of the most influential works of
US Literature since 1900, covering poetry, fiction and drama. Since the
1850s and the so-called “American Renaissance”, literature of the United
States developed its true independence in the 20th century, yet it remains a
literature deeply concerned with national identity and with specifically
American issues.
Except for those marked *, the course texts are available in The Norton
Anthology of American Literature, 7th edition, volumes D and E. Students
are advised to purchase this (though there are multiple copies in the College
Library). The Great Gatsby is readily available in inexpensive editions.
1.
Introduction
2.
F Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby*
3.
William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying
4.
Ernest Hemingway, Selected fiction
5.
Robert Frost Selected Poetry
6.
Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath, Selected Poetry
7.
Study Week
8.
Elizabeth Bishop Selected Poetry
9.
Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God*
10.
Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire
11.
David Mamet, Glengarry Glen Ross
12.
Toni Morrison, Beloved*
Learning Outcomes: US Literature in the 20th Century (SF
Option)
On successful completion of this module a student should be able to:
Identify the principal characteristics of US Literature in the 20th Century
Distinguish between some of major American writers of the 20th century,
and relate specific texts to larger oeuvres.
Situate this knowledge in a larger historical, cultural and literary context.
Employ a range of interpretive strategies, using an advanced critical and
theoretical vocabulary, to engage in a close reading of a selection of
texts.
Apply this knowledge base and these interpretive strategies to advanced
studies of cognate subjects at Sophister level.
Beginners’ Old English
Dr Stephen Graham
Senior Freshman Option HT
This option is open to anyone who has not had the opportunity to do the
JF course Early English Language i.e. TSM students, transferring students
and visiting students.
The course offers a basic introduction to Old English through once-weekly
classes and guided self-study. We will begin with the rudiments of
grammar, go on to simple prose texts and finish by reading the muchadmired poem The Dream of the Rood.
Learning Outcomes: Beginning Old English
On successful completion of this course, students should be able to





apply basic grammatical terminology
parse a sentence of Old English with some help from the grammar
textbook
translate The Dream of the Rood
make use of glossaries and grammars to translate an unseen
passage of Old English prose
proceed to more advanced study of Old English.
Textbook
Peter Baker, Introduction to Old English, 2nd edn (Oxford: Blackwell,
2007)
Further Reading
S. A. J. Bradley, Anglo-Saxon Poetry (London: Everyman, 1982)
[translations of OE poetry: worth purchasing]
Richard Marsden, The Cambridge Old English Reader (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2004) [anthology of texts with marginal
glosses – secondhand copies available]
Michael Swanton, Anglo-Saxon Prose (London: Everyman, 1975)
[translations]
Richard Harmer, A Choice of Anglo-Saxon Verse (London: Faber, 1970)
[texts and translations]
Michael Swanton, Beowulf (Manchester: Manchester U. P., 1978) [text
and translation]
Malcolm Godden and Michael Lapidge (eds.), The Cambridge Companion
to Old English Literature (Cambridge: C. U. P., 1991)
Phillip Pulsiano and Elaine Treharne (eds.), A Companion to Anglo-Saxon
Literature (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001)
T. A. Shippey, Old English Verse (London: Hutchinson, 1972)
James Campbell (ed.), The Anglo-Saxons (Harmondsworth: Penguin,
1991)
Other American Literatures
Dr Melanie Otto
Dr Paul Delaney, Prof Stephen Matterson, Dr Melanie Otto
Senior Freshman Option HT
Aims
This course is designed to introduce students to American literature in a
hemispheric rather than a national context and to encourage them to
explore links between literature and wider cultural and political debates.
The course will look at American literature in a non-canonical way and
also introduce relevant debates in postcolonial studies.
Week 1: Introduction (MO)
Week 2: Michael Ondaatje, In the Skin of a Lion (MO)
Week 3: Alistair MacLeod, No Great Mischief (PD)
Week 4: Jean Rhys, Voyage in the Dark (MO)
Week 5: Jamaica Kincaid, Annie John (MO)
Week 6: Jhumpa Lahiri, The Interpreter of Maladies (PD)
Week 7: Study Week
Week 8: Lafcadio Hearn, Inventing New Orleans & Two Years in the
French West Indies (MO)
Week 9: Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Of Love and Other Demons (MO)
Week 10: N. Scott Momaday, The Way to Rainy Mountain, and Leslie
Marmon Silko, “Lullaby.” (The Norton Anthology of American Literature,
7th edition, volume E) (SM)
Week 11: Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street (PD)
Week 12: Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles (MO)
Learning outcomes:
On successful completion of this module students should be able to:



examine American literature in a hemispheric and transnational
context
reflect and write critically on any topic in the area
explore connections between American and postcolonial studies
Narrative and identity in modern Scottish writing
Dr Crawford Gribben
Senior Freshman Option HT
This team-taught course explores the formation of national and personal
identities in Scottish writing from the eighteenth century to the present
day. Lectures cover a variety of genres and engage with texts by such
authors as Allan Ramsay, Robert Burns, James Hogg, Robert Louis
Stevenson, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, John Buchan, Muriel Spark, and Julie
Bertagna.
Learning outcomes:
On successful completion of this module a student should be able to:
1. Analyse Scottish literary texts using techniques of close reading;
2. Demonstrate a context of appropriate contextual knowledge;
3. Understand the application of literary theories to Scottish literary
texts;
4. Express themselves in a manner suitable to SF.
Contemporary Irish Fiction
Dr Paul Delaney
Senior Freshman Option HT
This one-semester SF option introduces students to the work of a range of
contemporary Irish novelists. The course engages with theories of the
novel and the contexts of recent prose fiction. Writers on the course
include John Banville, John McGahern, Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, Colm Tóibín,
William Trevor, Anne Enright and Roddy Doyle.
Week 1
Introduction: contexts and theories
Week 2
William Trevor, Felicia’s Journey
Week 3
Roddy Doyle, The Woman Who Walked Into Doors
Week 4
Seamus Deane, Reading in the Dark
Week 5
Colm Tóibín, The Blackwater Lightship
Week 6
Emma Donoghue, Hood
Week 7
Study Week
Week 8
John Banville, The Sea
Week 9
Joseph O’Connor, Star of the Sea
Week 10
Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, The Dancers Dancing
Week 11
Anne Enright, The Pleasure of Eliza Lynch
Week 12
John McGahern, That They May Face the Rising Sun
Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of this module a student should be able to:
Identify the principal characteristics of the novel form as it has been
practised in recent Irish writing.
Distinguish between some of the principal practitioners of the form in the
contemporary period, and relate specific texts to larger oeuvres.
Situate this knowledge in a larger historical, cultural and literary context.
Employ a range of interpretive strategies, using an advanced critical and
theoretical vocabulary, to engage in a close reading of a selection of
texts.
Apply this knowledge base and these interpretive strategies to advanced
studies of cognate subjects at Sophister level.
Twentieth Century Women’s Fiction
Dr. Heather Ingman HT
This course looks at a range of twentieth-century novels and short stories
by women writers, beginning with Rose Macaulay’s First World War novel,
Non-Combatants and Others and continuing through the decades to
include modernist writers like Virginia Woolf, post-colonial writers like
Jean Rhys, the fairy tales of Angela Carter and postmodernist writers like
Jeanette Winterson. The course will set the fiction in its historical and
cultural context and consider questions both of theme and style in an
endeavour to locate a female tradition and practice of writing. There will
also be a chance to discuss the texts in the light of gender and other
theories, as appropriate. Topics covered include romance, motherhood,
war, gender, politics.
Week One: Fin de siecle women writers. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The
Yellow Wall-paper (1892).
2 Rose Macaulay, Non-Combatants and Others (1916).
3 Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway (1925)
4. Jean Rhys, Voyage in the Dark (1934)
5. Rosamond Lehmann, The Weather in the Streets (1936).
6. Iris Murdoch, The Bell (1958).
7. Reading Week
8. Margaret Drabble, The Millstone (1965).
9. Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber (1979).
10. Muriel Spark, Loitering with Intent (1981)
11. Jeanette Winterson, Written on the Body (1992).
12. Recap
Background Reading:
Please note: specific bibliography for individual lectures will be given each
week. The following are surveys, to be used selectively.
Gilbert, S. and Gubar. S. No Man’s Land: The Place of the Woman Writer
in the Twentieth Century.
Head, Dominic Cambridge Introduction to Modern British Fiction 19502000 (2002).
Humble, Nicola The Feminine Middlebrow Novel, 1920s to 1950s (2001).
Makinen, Merja, Feminist Popular Fiction (2001).
Maslen, Elizabeth, Political and Social Issues in British Women’s Fiction
1928-68 (2001).
Showalter, Elaine A Literature of their Own. British Women Novelists from
Bronte to Lessing.
Trodd, Anthea, Women’s Writing in English: Britain 1900-1945 (1998).
Watkins, Susan, Twentieth-Century Women Novelists: feminist theory into
practice (2001).
Wisker, Gina It’s my Party: Reading Twentieth-Century Women’s Writing.
Students who successfully complete this course will:
Be familiar with a range of twentieth century fiction by women, including
fairytales, the realist novel, fable and experimental work.
Show a general awareness of a variety of critical and theoretical
approaches to women’s writing.
Demonstrate knowledge of characteristic themes in twentieth-century
women’s fiction such as war, the romance plot, motherhood, politics,
philosophy, the female artist.
Show familiarity with the evolution of women’s fiction through the
century, from modernism to post-modernism.