This course is a general introduction to modern Irish literature. After a brief survey of early modern works and authors, we'll focus on the Irish Literary Revival and its aftermath (1880-1940). The reading list includes works of visionary intensity and stark realism, passion and irreverence, humor and high drama. We'll be paying special attention to the role of literature in forging a distinct national and personal identity, and to the unique contributions of Irish writers to modern British literary culture. The course will be especially useful to students who wish to study further the Irish masters of British modernism (Yeats, Joyce, and Beckett) or contemporaries such as recent Nobel-prize winner Seamus Heaney.

Requirements include:

memorizing (and reciting) one longer poem (or several shorter ones) by Yeats (one grade unit); attendance, quizzes, short written assignments (one grade unit); final (two grade units). Texts: Maria Edgeworth, Castle Rackrent (Oxford, World's Classics); W. B. Yeats, Early Poems (Dover Thrift); J. M. Synge, The Playboy of the Western World (Dover Thrift); James Joyce, Dubliners (Dover Thrift); James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man; Flann O'Brien, The Poor Mouth (Dalkey Archive Press); Edna O’Brien, Mother Ireland (Plume); The Tain, Kinsella translation (Oxford ppb: OPTIONAL!); course pack.