Module Identifier ENM7120  
Module Title WRITING IRELAND: YEATS AND JOYCE  
Academic Year 2007/2008  
Co-ordinator Dr Luke A Thurston  
Semester Semester 1  
Other staff Dr Luke A Thurston  
Course delivery Seminars / Tutorials   2 Hours. 5 X 2 HOUR SEMINARS  
Assessment
Assessment TypeAssessment Length/DetailsProportion
Semester Assessment ESSAY 5000 WORDS  100%
Supplementary Assessment RESUBMIT FAILED ELEMENT Resubmit any failed elements and/or make good any missing elements. Where this involves re-submission of work, a new topic must be selected.100%

Learning outcomes

On completion of this module, students should be able to

1. Conduct informed and independent research on the work of Yeats and Joyce

2. Display mastery of critical and theoretical debates around the texts of Yeats and Joyce

3. Articulate original links between history, cultural identity and literary texts

4. Engage in coherent oral discussion of the texts and background material

Content

1. Introduction: Divergent Currents   
Yeats - (poems from) The Wind Among the Reeds
   Joyce - (stories from) Dubliners
2. Revival and Reinvention
Yeats - (poems from) The Green Helmet and Other Poems
   Joyce - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
3. Location and Dislocation
Yeats - (poems from) Responsibilities
   Joyce - Ulysses (I) (extracts)
4.   Vision and Blindness
Yeats - (poems from) The Tower
Joyce - Ulysses (II) (extracts)
5. Our Proper Dark
Yeats - (poems from) Last Poems
   Joyce - Finnegans Wake (extracts)

Brief description

The module provides the opportunity for students to become familiar with the work of two key figures of both Modernist and Irish literature, to gain critical mastery of the debates surrounding their work and to explore connections between literary and political history.

Aims

W.B. Yeats and James Joyce are two of the most significant and influential figures of literary modernism and of modern Irish culture. Both writers set out to reinvent Ireland through art, although in radically different ways; and both drew on aspects of a suppressed Irish culture to invent new kinds of `English literature?. This module explores the troubled conjunction of Irish identity and modernist innovation in Yeats and Joyce, and examines the questions of cultural politics still posed by their works.

Reading Lists

Books
** General Text
Joyce, James (2000) A portrait of the artist as a young man /by James Joyce; with six drawings by Robin Jacques. Ed Jeri Johnson. Oxford University Press
Joyce, James (2000) Dubliners /James Joyce. Ed Jeri Johnson. Oxford University Press
Joyce, James (1975 1980 print) Finnegans wake /by James Joyce. 0571108075
Joyce, James (1986.) Ulysses /James Joyce ; the corrected text edited by Hans Walter Gabler with Wolfhard Steppe and Claus Melchior ; and with a new preface by Richard Ellmann. 0140084274
Yeats, W. B. (1997) The Major Works Ed Edward Larrissy. Oxford University Press

Notes

This module is at CQFW Level 7