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Home , Eavan Boland, Irish Literary Revival

ENGLISH 367-1 (41060): MODERN IRISH LITEATURE FALL 2014, MODAY & WEDNESDAY 1:40 PM - 2:55 PM, KLAPPER 304 Instructor: Jeff Cassvan Office: Klapper 706 Phone: (718) 997-4710 Office Hour: Monday 12:30-1:30 PM and by appointment email: [email protected]

We propose to have performed in , in the spring of every year certain Celtic and Irish plays, which whatever be their degree of excellence will be written with a high ambition, and so to build up a Celtic and Irish school of dramatic literature. We hope to find in Ireland an uncorrupted and imaginative audience trained to listen by its passion for oratory, and believe that our desire to bring upon the stage the deeper thoughts and emotions of Ireland will ensure for us a tolerant welcome, and that freedom to experiment which is not found in theatres of England, and without which no new movement in art or literature can succeed. We will show that Ireland is not the home of buffoonery and of easy sentiment, as it has been represented, but the home of an ancient idealism. We are confident of the support of all Irish people, who are weary of misrepresentation, in carrying out a work that is outside all the political questions that divide us. --W. B. Yeats, Lady Augusta Gregory and , 1897

If an artist courts the favour of the multitude he cannot escape the contagion of its fetichism and deliberate self-deception, and if he joins in a popular movement he does so at his own risk. Therefore, the Irish Literary Theatre by its surrender to the trolls has cut itself adrift from the line of advancement. Until he has freed himself from the mean influences about him—sodden enthusiasm and clever insinuation and every flattering influence of vanity and low ambition—no man is an artist at all. --, “The Day of the Rabblement,” 1901

Course Description: This course will provide a thorough introduction to the work of modern Irish writers in the context of Irish history and culture. In addition to our concentration on important works by W.B. Yeats, J.M. Synge, James Joyce, , Nuala ni Dhomhnaill, and , we will spend some time focusing on the ways a number of the major trends in literary theory and criticism have been applied to the interpretation of this diverse material. This will include an exploration of the question of the relationship between the study of literature and the study of history and of the concept of tradition itself. Our careful reading of a number of the major works of modern will be accompanied by a theoretical interrogation of the modes of literary criticism and interpretation.

Required Texts:

Pethica, James, ed. Yeats’s Poetry, Drama, and Prose. Norton Critical Edition. [ISBN 0393974979]

Scholes, Robert, and A. Walton Litz, eds. Dubliners/James Joyce: Text and Criticism. The Viking Critical Library. [ISBN 0140247742] *Please note that many required course documents will only be available for you to download and print from Blackboard.

Learning Goals By the end of the semester, students will: - Acquire a deeper appreciation and understanding of the poetry, drama and prose of modern Irish literature in the context of Irish history and culture. - Acquire an enhanced ability to recognize the poetic elements of diction, figurative language, imagery, tone, sound and rhythm and understand the ways in which they function in a wide range of poems. - Acquire an enhanced ability to recognize the conventions of modern drama and short fiction. - Acquire an understanding and appreciation of the diverse ways in which modern Irish poets experiment with and exploit a wide range of Irish themes and motifs and lyrical subgenres and fixed forms. - Improve their ability to read more productively and to recognize the conventions of critical and theoretical academic essays. - Be able to analyze in a clear and convincing written argument the relationship between the form and the content (the style and the meaning, the rhetorical and the thematic dimensions) of some of the richest works of literature written in English in the twentieth century. - Be able to make very convincing use of evidence quoted from the texts of poems, of plays and short works of fiction as well as secondary critical and theoretical sources in their analytical essays and in their discussion board posts.

This course can be used to satisfy the College Option Literature Requirement.

Course Requirements: You will be required to produce two essays, each of approximately 1,000-1,250 words (4- 5 pages) for the semester. In addition, you will be required to post written responses to class readings (between 300-500 words) on Blackboard (“Discussion Board”) prior to our class meeting (usually) on Monday each week. In these responses you will record your questions, thoughts and explorations of the assigned texts and you will receive a general grade for this work at the end of the semester. You will be expected to participate in class discussions and you will be required to do at least one in-class presentation on a reading assignment. You must meet a standard of adequate attendance. Any student with more than one unexcused absence should expect this to be reflected in the final grade. All writing assignments must be typed, double-spaced, in 12 point type, with 1” margins. You must take the time to proofread and edit all of your work and you must use MLA guidelines for citing sources and constructing a works cited list. There is a final examination scheduled for Wednesday, December 17, 2014, from 1:45 PM to 3:45 PM.

Final course grades will be determined as follows: Preparation and Participation --10% Reading Responses --20% essay 1 --25% essay 2 --25% final exam --20%

Tentative Reading Schedule: Weeks 1-4: W.B. Yeats and the Weeks 5-7: Four plays by , assorted prose/poetry, MiddleYeats Weeks 8-11: James Joyce’s Dubliners, Late Yeats Weeks 12-14 Poetry of Heaney, Muldoon, Nuala ni Dhomhnaill, Eavan Boland

For the week of Monday, September 8, please complete the following reading assignment:

*All materials distributed on 9/3/14 including the poems by Eavan Boland and Seamus Heaney, Aogan O'Rathaille's "Brightness Most Bright," 's "Dark Rosaleen" and the entry on the "Literary Revival."

* Please be sure to print, read and bring to class the document in "Course Materials" entitled "Notes on '' and on 'Dark Rosaleen'"

*“A Brief Outline of Irish History” (“Course Materials”/Blackboard)

In Pethica’s Yeats’s Poetry, Drama, and Prose: *Pethica’s “Introduction,” pp. xi-xxiv *pp. 3-11 from Crossways, paying special attention to “The Song of the Happy Shepherd,” “The Sad Shepherd,” “Ephemera,” “The Stolen Child,” “To an Isle in the Water,” “Down by the Salley Gardens” and “The Meditation of the Old Fisherman” *pp. 12-22 from The Rose, paying special attention to “To the Rose upon the Rood of Time,” “Fergus and the Druid,” “The Rose of the World,” “The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” “The Pity of Love,” “The Sorrow of Love” (two versions), “When You are Old,” “Who goes with Fergus?,” “To Ireland in the Coming Times,” “The Man Who Dreamed of Faeryland”(Blackboard) [Note that I have made a copy of this available in the "Course Materials" section of Blackboard]

*John P. Harrington’s “Preface” to Modern Irish Drama, pp. viii-xiv (available in the “Course Materials” section of Blackboard)

We will continue to discuss this material on Wednesday, September 10, and on Monday, September 15.

You must post a response of between 300 and 500 words to one or two of the assigned poems by Yeats on the "Discussion Board" of Blackboard by no later than 9 PM on Tuesday evening, September 9. Remember that your responses should be informed by all of the assigned primary and secondary readings as well as by our class discussions. And you must take the time to read your peers' responses before coming to class on Wednesday, September 10, taking note of those you found to be most interesting.

Please note that all other weekly assignments will be available in the “Assignments” section of Blackboard.

Digging by Seamus Heaney

Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound When the spade sinks into gravelly ground: My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds Bends low, comes up twenty years away Stooping in rhythm through potato drills Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft Against the inside knee was levered firmly. He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep To scatter new potatoes that we picked, Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade. Just like his old man.

My grandfather cut more turf in a day Than any other man on Toner’s bog. Once I carried him milk in a bottle Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up To drink it, then fell to right away Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods Over his shoulder, going down and down For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge Through living roots awaken in my head. But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests. I’ll dig with it.

Assignments for Wednesday, September 10 and Monday, September 15:

For Wednesday, September 10, please complete the following reading assignment:

*pp. 12-22 from The Rose, paying special attention to “To the Rose upon the Rood of Time,” “Fergus and the Druid,” “The Rose of the World,” “The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” “The Pity of Love,” “The Sorrow of Love” (two versions), “When You are Old,” “Who goes with Fergus?,” “To Ireland in the Coming Times,” “The Man Who Dreamed of Faeryland”(Blackboard) [Note that I have made a copy of a number of these poems available in the "Course Materials" section of Blackboard]

*John P. Harrington’s “Preface” to Modern Irish Drama, pp. viii-xiv (available in the “Course Materials” section of Blackboard)

We will begin by focusing our attention on the "Literary Revival" entry and the poems by O'Rathaille and Mangan (please be sure to print, read and bring to class the document in "Course Materials" entitled "Notes on 'Aisling' and on 'Dark Rosaleen'") before turning to a consideration of the introductions by Pethica and Harrington and to a range of poems from Yeats's Crossways.

There is no reading response due for this week.

We will continue to discuss the poems of Crossways when we reconvene on Wednesday, September 5 (the college is closed on Monday, September 3 for Labor Day). We will also turn our attention next week and the following week to a range of poems from the volumes The Rose and The Wind Among the Reeds ("The Lover Tells of the Rose in His Heart, "The Pity of Love" and "The Secret Rose"). For our work on the poems of The Rose and The Wind Among the Reeds you must also read Yeats's brief prose text "The Body of the Father Christian Rosencruz" (available in the "Course Matertials" section of Blackboard) and Yeats's brief essay "Hopes and Fears for Irish Literature, included on pages 258-260 of Pethica. You should also read Harold Bloom's assessment of "The Secret Rose" and Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind."

You must post a response of between 300 and 500 words to one or two poems by Yeats on the "Discussion Board" of Blackboard by no later than 9 PM on Tuesday evening, September 4. Remember that your responses should be informed by all of the assigned primary and secondary readings as well as by our class discussions. And you must take the time to read your peers' responses before coming to class on Friday, February 5th, taking note of those you found to be most interesting.