LIT
4188, Section 9115
World English Language Literatures
Modern Irish Literature and
the Uprising, 1916-1922
Professor Phillip Wegner
Tuesday
5-6 (11:45 a.m.-1:40 p.m.); Thursday 6
(12:50-1:40 p.m.)
Turlington
2333
Office Hours: Wednesday, 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m., Thursday, 2-3
p.m.;
Office:
Turlington 4335
and
by appointment
Phone:
392-6650. ex. 261 (office); 392-0777 (dept.)
http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/pwegner/home.htm
This
course will
examine some of ways the most significant sequence of events in modern
Irish
historyÑthe Easter Rebellion of 1916, the subsequent Anglo-Irish
War for
Independence, and the 1922-1923 Civil WarÑboth created the
context for an
incredibly rich outpouring of fiction and poetry in the early decades
of the
twentieth century, and continues to reverberate in Irish literature
today.
Texts
Maud
Gonne MacBride, The Autobiography of Maud Gonne: A Servant of the
Queen
Sean
O'Casey, Three Dublin Plays
Elizabeth
Bowen, The Last September
James
Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
James
Joyce, Ulysses (Gabler Edition)
Harry
Blamires, The New Bloomsday Book
Roddy
Doyle, A Star Called Henry
Jamie
O'Neil, At Swim, Two Boys
These
texts are all
available at Goerings Book Store Campus Location (1717 NW 1st Avenue,
next door
to Bageland; 377-3703). As we will
be doing a good deal of close reading during the course of the
semester, I ask
that you get copies with the same pagination as these editions. There will also be a few required film
viewings. Finally, some additional
readings, primarily short essays, may be made available during the
course of
the semester.
Requirements,
Grading, and Related Matters
1) First, a brief but important general
reminder: This is not an
introductory level literature course, and all enrolled students should
have
previously completed some literature courses on the lower- and/or,
preferably, the upper-division
levels. There will be a good deal
of reading, and you may find some of it difficult.
You will be expected to keep up with all the readings, and
you will be asked to demonstrate, in both your oral and written
contributions
to the class, proficiency in the kinds of critical and analytical
skills
expected of advanced literary studies majors. These
minimally would entail some experience in reading
literary fictions critically, an ability to ascertain the thematic and
formal
textures of the work, a familiarity with some of the technical devices
deployed
by writers (point-of-view, metaphor, irony, and so forth), some broad
sense of
modern literary history, and a willingness to think about the intimate
connections between these works and the historical contexts in which
they
unfold. At the same time, this is not a history course; hence, I will
not
assume that you have any familiarity with the various historical issues
we will
also be discussing. If you have
any questions about whether this course is right for you, or want
suggestions
on how you might brush up on some of the basics, please come and speak
with me soon.
2) Our primary endeavor in this course is
to help you become a better reader of literature and film.
This means that we will attempt to
grasp as fully as possible through our shared discussions precisely
what kind
of vision is offered through both the content and form of these texts. What we are not going to do is spend
time in either our class discussions or our written work debating the
merits of
the vision presented, declaring our agreement or disagreement,
expressing how
it affected us, or offering alternative views. A
real education involves encounters with ideas and points
of view that may not be your own and that may cause some discomfort. Only through such encounters can we
both better understand ourselves and grow.
3) Three formal papers of varying
the length, the first and shortest being 6-8 pages, all double-spaced,
with
one-inch margins, a reasonable 12-point or smaller font, and a
consistent
bibliographic format. A successful
paper will fulfill all of the previous requirements, and demonstrate at
once
your grasp of and engagement with the concrete specifics of the reading
material, their relationship to the various historical and cultural
issues we
discuss in class, and our classroom discussions more generally. Approximately two weeks before each
paper is due, I will provide you with a series of questions that will
help
focus your discussion, and you will be required to develop each of your
papers
in response to them.
I
may from time to time also make available to you additional related
readings
that address the larger issues we will be discussing in class, or
provide other
background information. You are
welcome to use these in developing your paper discussion.
However, you must provide a
bibliography of any additional readings and come and talk to me in
advance
about the use of any other materials in completing your papers (and
please
review the note on academic honesty found below).
Papers
are due on the dates noted; late papers will receive lowered grades
unless
other arrangements have been made in advance with me.
4) Readings should be completed before
the first class meeting in which they are to be discussed.
The length and difficulty of each
reading varies, and to keep on pace you must be reading continuously
throughout
the semester: in short, this means as the semester progresses you will
be
reading well ahead of our discussions.
Moreover,
I do expect lively participation on everyone's part in the discussion
of these
works. Depending on your activities in class, occasional short quizzes
or other
brief in class writing assignments may become necessary.
5) I will also ask each of you to turn in
every week a reading log, tracking your progress in the course readings. I will also be asking you from time to
time to respond to specific questions or to do short research exercises. Your first job in your reading logs
will be to keep track of the movement of the narrative as it unfolds
through
each chapter. What is the plot in
each of the chapters? What happens
and to whom? Who are the
characters, what are they doing, and how are they presented to us? Your second task will be to briefly
comment upon the workÕs particular representations, especially
in terms of the
issues at the center of our discussion.
I donÕt want you to evaluate the work (Òthis is
stupidÓ is not an
acceptable observation), but rather to offer your thoughts on the
authorÕs
reasons for presenting things in the way they do. Finally,
these logs are a great place for you to note down
any specific questions you have about the work, difficult places, or
passages
or scenes that might be worthy and relevant for further discussion in
class. These logs will prove
invaluable to me in tracking the issues of interest to you in the
readings, and
for you as reminders of what you have read as you get ahead of the
class
discussion.
6) As everything above should suggest,
attendance and participation in class discussion are an indispensable
part of
the work we are going to do here.
To this end, you will sign a class attendance roster circulated
at the
beginning of each meeting. You
will be allowed three unexcused absences, totaling no more than four
class
hours, throughout the semester.
Any additional non-emergency, non-medical absence not cleared in
advance by me will result in a lowering of the final course grade. To state the matter simply and
directly, if you miss an excessive number of classes, you will have
been
considered not to have completed the requirements of the
course, and
hence will not receive a passing grade. Moreover,
regular late arrivals (or early departures) will
be counted as absences.
7) No final or midterm
examinations.
8) Grades will be based on the conscientious
completion of all of the above requirements.
Failure to fulfill any of the above requirements--including
attendance or reading logs--will impact directly on your final grade. If you have any concerns or questions
about your work for this class, please come and speak with me.
9) Finally, communication is crucial to
everything we are going to do in the next four months.
Thus, if you are unsure about any of
the course requirements, or run into any kind of difficulty, academic
or
otherwise, as the semester progresses, please come and speak with me as
soon as
you can. I will try to be as
accommodating as possible, but I cannot help you if you do not let me
know what
is going on. Also if you have any
general questions, or just feel like continuing the discussion begun in
class,
I encourage you to drop by during my scheduled office hours, or to make
an
appointment to see me.
A
Brief Note on Academic Honesty
Plagiarism
in any
form--including but not limited to directly quoting, paraphrasing, or
summarizing
from external sources without proper citations, as well as presenting
as your
own work papers written by someone else (for example a paper written by
a
friend; a purchased or retyped paper; or one taken from a file,
electronic or
otherwise)--is a direct violation of the university Academic Honesty
Code. You are required to review this code
and the Academic Honesty Guidelines, especially the discussion of
plagiarism,
found in the Undergraduate Catalogue.
Plagiarism or any other form of academic dishonesty will result
in an
automatic failure of the assignment, a mandatory rewriting of the
assignment,
and a lowering by two letter grades of your final course grade
(a B
would become a D); a second attempt will result in an automatic failure
of the
course and a filing of a report in your academic file.
If you have any questions, or even the slightest doubt, about what constitutes
plagiarism or
academic dishonesty, I beseech you to come and speak with me before
you turn in the
paper.
Tentative
Schedule
PART I:
Contemporary
Views
August 30-September 29
Poems by
Pádraic
Pearse and W.B. Yeats
Pearse,
"The Rebel"
Yeats,
"Easter
1916" "The Second Coming"
"Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen"
Maud
Gonne MacBride, The Autobiography of Maud Gonne: A Servant of the
Queen
Sean
O'Casey, Three Dublin Plays
Elizabeth
Bowen, The Last September
John Ford
(d), The
Informer
Alfred
Hitchcock (d), Juno
and the Paycock
Paper
#1 due
October 6
PART II:
Joyce and
the Uprising
October
4-November 3
James
Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
James
Joyce, Ulysses (Gabler Edition)
Harry Blamires, The New Bloomsday Book
No class October 27
Joyce Paper due November
10
PART III:
Recent
Rememberings
November 8-December 6
Neil
Jordan (d), Michael
Collins
Roddy
Doyle, A Star Called Henry
Jamie
O'Neil, At
Swim, Two Boys
No
class
November 24 (Thanksgiving)
Contemporary
Literature paper due Friday December 9 at 5 p.m.
Define in a paragraph or two, and in your own words (i.e. don't just cut and paste), the following. Please provide your source for the information (either URL address or bibliographic information):
Charles Stewart Parnell
Easter Uprising (1916)
Define in a paragraph or two, and in your own words (i.e. don't just cut and paste), four of the following. Please provide your source for the information (either URL address or bibliographic information):
Act of Union (1801)
United Irishmen
Fenians
Wolf Tone
Home Rule Bill
Michael Collins
Bloody Sunday (1920)
Eamon de Velera
James Connolly
Irish Civil War
