ENGL 90531 - W. B. Yeats and the Irish Literary Revival

Institution:

University of Notre Dame

Subject:

English

Description:

This course will set itself a number of questions: can we identify the causes which led to the sudden revival in Irish cultural life in the 1890s, how far was it a "revival" (and what exactly was being revived) and how far a new initiative? What was its relationship with history and with contemporary political events and thinking, with developments in comparative mythology, anthropology, and structures of religious belief? How did the Irish literary movement evolve from the 1890s to the beginning of the Second World War, what were its salient features, and which voices and factors were most influential in shaping (or challenging) that evolution? Our procedure will be to engage through the close reading of specific texts with the development of thought and ideas, and to assess the pertinence of cultural and political movements of the time. Yeats's career - the evolution of his style, thinking, and aesthetic, and the action and reaction to his ideas and practices, will be a linking theme. Particular attention will also be given to John Synge, the rise of the Abbey Theatre, James Joyce, Sean O'Casey, and early Beckett. . The course will begin with an examination of the work of a cluster of writers in the late 1880s - Yeats, Standish James O'Grady, John O'Leary, Katharine Tynan, and Douglas Hyde - and go on to set their views and ambitions in the context of their nineteenth-century antecedents, paying particular attention to Thomas Davis and the Young Irelanders. We shall then look at the cultural situation in Ireland in the 1890s - and examine the impact of the fall and death of Parnell on the period, as well as the influence of the Celtic and the Symbolist Movements on the writings of Yeats, AE (George Russell) and others. We shall analyse the often turbulent achievements and effects of the Irish Theatre Movement on the development of dramatic methodology and national identity, trace the way in which Joyce offered other approaches to the question of a national literature, examine the causes and consequences of Yeats's change of style after 1900, assess the impact of the "Poets' Rebellion" of Easter 1916 and the reactions to its long aftermath in the 1920s. We shall consider Yeats's position, and his poetics, in the 1930s and assess the extent to which it was being challenged by new writers such as Patrick Kavanagh, Frank O'Connor, Sean O'Faolain and Samuel Beckett.

Credits:

3.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.nd.edu

Phone Number:

(574) 631-5000

Regional Accreditation:

North Central Association of Colleges and Schools

Calendar System:

Semester

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