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 2021, these texts will include the following:
- poetry: we will treat two key writers, W.B. Yeats (1865 – 1939) and Eavan Boland (1944 – 2020), focusing on poems written across their respective careers;
- the novel: we will read two key bildungsroman or coming-of-age novels - one by James Joyce (1882 – 1941) - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) and one by Kate O’Brien (1897-1974) - The land of Spices (1941)
- the short story: we will engage with the work of one major Irish short story writer: Elizabeth Bowen (1899 – 1973)