Syllabus
Fiction
- Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness - D. H. Lawrence: Sons and Lovers - Virginia Woolf: Mrs. Dalloway - James Joyce: “Eveline”
- Christopher Isherwood: Goodbye to Berlin (extract) - Anthony Burgess: A Clockwork Orange - John Fowles: The French Lieutenant’s Woman - Kazuo Ishiguro: The Remains of the Day
- Zadie Smith: White Teeth
- Ian McEwan: Atonement
Poetry
- W. B. Yeats: “The Second Coming”
- T. S. Eliot: “The Hollow Men” - W. H. Auden: “Musée des Beaux Arts” - Philip Larkin: “Church Going” - Seamus Heaney: “Punishment”
- Craig Raine: “A Martian Sends a Postcard Home”
- Carol Ann Duffy: “Valentine”
- Benjamin Zephaniah: “Dis Poetry”
Drama
- Samuel Beckett: Waiting for Godot
- John Osborne: Look Back in Anger
Annotation
This course focuses on the major developments of 20th century fiction and poetry although, where relevant, drama is also mentioned. While the series of lectures will provide a general social and cultural context for the variety of rapid developments within these genres, the seminars will focus on individual works (listed below) encouraging students to develop critical close-reading techniques as well as to explore broader moral, philosophical and aesthetic issues.
Not only the texts selected reflect the cultural plurality of 20th century British literature, they at the same time “speak to each other” in a number of ways. In the close critical discussions students will be encouraged to discover some recurrent concerns within this diversity (of texts) as well as use their knowledge of previous developments within individual genres.