Learning Outcomes:
On completion of this module students should be able to:
1. demonstrate a critical understanding of the individual texts on this course;
2. apply close reading skills focused on individual textual elements (including formal components) to an investigation of that text's larger meaning;
3. situate the literary writing on this course in its national, historical, social, political and scholarly critical contexts;
4. make informed comparisons between texts from the different Irish writers studied;
5. contribute effectively to peer group discussion and analysis of issues relating to modern Irish literature;
6. complete the two required smaller written assignments and a formal essay on topics related to the course.
Indicative Module Content:
Students will read key selected Irish literary texts written between the late 19th century and the present day. For Autumn 2020, these texts will include the following:
- the poetry of W.B.Yeats (written between the 1880s and the 1930s);
- James Joyce's coming-of-age novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916);
- short stories by Elizabeth Bowen (written in the 1930s, '40s and '50s);
- Sean O'Casey's play, Juno and the Paycock (1924);
- the poetry of Eavan Boland (written between the 1960s and the present;
- Marina Carr's play, By the Bog of Cats (1998)