BBNAN09100 - Modern Irish Poetry and Drama
Wednesday, 16.00-17.30
Tárogató 222
Dr. Michael McAteer
From the end of the 19th century to the end of the 20th century, poets and dramatists who were born in Ireland have made an enormous contribution to English-language poetry and drama internationally. In this seminar, students will study the poetry of W.B. Yeats and Seamus Heaney, Patrick Kavanagh, Louis MacNeice, Thomas Kinsella, Eavan Boland and Medbh McGuckian. A range of important plays will also be covered, including works by W.B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, J.M. Synge, Sean O’Casey, Samuel Beckett and Brian Friel. The seminar will examine how Irish places and people are represented in poetry and drama. Students will also consider the range of poetic and theatrical forms that writers from Ireland use. Through this, students will develop a critical understanding of modern Irish poetry and drama in relation to cultural, political, historical, and religious influences.
Week One Wednesday February 15: Introduction
Week Two: Wednesday, February 22: W.B. Yeats and Lady Gregory, Cathleen ni Houlihan; Lady Gregory, The Rising of the Moon.
Week Three: Wednesday, March 1: J. M. Synge, The Playboy of the Western World
Week Four: Wednesday, March 8: W.B. Yeats’s Poetry; Yeats’s play Purgatory.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 15 – NATIONAL HOLIDAY (NO CLASS)
Week Five: Wednesday, March 22: Sean O’Casey, Juno and the Paycock
Week Eight: Wednesday, Marc 29: Poetry, Louis MacNeice and Patrick Kavanagh
Week Seven: Wednesday, April 5: Poetry, Thomas Kinsella
TERM BREAK: MONDAY APRIL10 TO FRIDAY APRIL 21
Week Ten: Wednesday, April 26: Samuel Beckett, Happy Days
Week Eleven: Wednesday, May 3: Poetry: Eavan Boland and Medbh McGuckian
Week Twelve: Wednesday, May 10:Brian Friel, Translations
Week Thirteen: Wednesday, May 17: Review
Assessment:
Essay (2000 words) to be submitted in final class, Wednesday, May 17, 2017
Reading:
All of the plays and many of the poems that you will read on this course are in the following books in PPKE Angol és Amerikai Intézet book holdings, Tárogató ut. In order to allow all students on the course the chance to read the poems, please photocopy the poems that you are required to read in the library and take them home to read.
Samuel Beckett, The Complete Dramatic Works (London: Penguin, 1990)
John P. Harrington, ed., Modern Irish Drama (London: Norton, 1991)
Peter Fallon and Derek Mahon, eds., The Penguin Book of Contemporary Irish Poetry
Louis MacNeice, Collected Poems (London: Faber, 1979)
W.B. Yeats, Selected Poetry, ed. Timothy Webb (London: Penguin, 1991)
Some Critical Works that Students Should Consult in PPKE Library:
Matthew Campbell, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Contemporary Irish Poetry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003)
Justin Quinn, TheCambridge Introduction to Modern Irish Poetry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008)
Shaun Richards, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century Irish Drama (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004)
Michael McAteer, Yeats and European Drama (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).
Nicholas Grene, The Politics of Irish Drama (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004)
Dirk Van Hulle, ed. The New Cambridge Companion to Samuel Beckett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015)
Helen Vendler, Our Secret Discipline: Yeats and Lyric Form (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007)