Annotation
This course is primarily an MA course, it is offered every winter semester and is a core requirement for studies specialising in Irish Studies. If MA places are not filled, BA students in year 3 of study (as elective/optional course). Erasmus students please note that this course requires advanced fluency in English: reading and writing.
The course will draw upon the rich tradition of Anglo-Irish writing, focusing on a variety of writers primarily from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In particular we will examine writers who have worked with humour and horror, in comic and gothic genres. One of the aims of this course is to investigate the subversive potential of the genres these writers used. Until recently many of these authors were considered as part of an English literary tradition, however we will be exploring the potential for doubleness in their work and identities as Anglo and Irish.
SCHEDULE:
Week 1 (3.10) Introduction: Historical and cultural contexts
Week 2 (10.10) Jonathan Swift Gulliver’s Travels (1726)
Week 3 (17.10) Jonathan Swift Gulliver’s Travels (1726)
Week 4 (24.10) Pamphlet: A Modest Proposal (1729), Edmund Burke Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) (Please read the marked extracts in the text posted on Moodle)
Week 5 (31.10) Maria Edgeworth Castle Rackrent (1800)
Week 6 (7.11) Midterm review session, group discussions
Week 7 (14.11) Barcelona symposium check Dion Boucicault The Shaughraun (1874)
Week 8 (21.11) J. Sheridan LeFanu Selected stories: “Green Tea” (1872), “Carmilla” (1871)
Week 9 (28.11) Bram Stoker Dracula (1897)
Week 10 (5.12) Oscar Wilde The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), selected essays: “The Critic as Artist”, “The Decay of Lying” (check Moodle for final selection)
Week 11 (12.12) G.B. Shaw John Bull’s Other Island (1904)
Week 12 (19.12) Discussion of research proposals
ESSAY PROPOSALS DUE by 15 December at 18.00
Week 13 (2.1) Reserve
Week 14 (9.1) Conclusion
Please note: priority goes to DALC MA students, others may join if there is space.