Introduction to British and Irish 20th-century literature. A course in 28 sessions

Introduction to British and Irish 20th Century Literature. A course in 28 sessions Rocío G. Sumillera Introduction to British and Irish 20th Century Literature. A course in 28 sessions The course aims to provide second-year L2 undergraduate students majoring/minoring in English with a survey of the literature (prose fiction, poetry, and drama) produced by late nineteenth-century and twentieth-century British and Irish authors. The course starts with a selection of works intended to explore the notions of empire and colonialism: a selection of essays by Joseph Chamberlain and J. A. Hobson, poems by Claude McKay and Louise Bennett, a short story by George Orwell, and Joseph Conrad’s short novel Heart of Darkness (1899). H. G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds (1898) functions as an introduction of sorts to a selection of World War I poetry by Rupert Brooke, Edward Thomas, Siegfried Sassoon, Isaac Rosenberg, and Wilfred Owen. Modernism in prose fiction and poetry is then examined through the study of James Joyce’s short story “The Dead” (1914), Virginia Woolf’s essays “Modern Fiction” (1921) and “A Room of One’s Own” (1929), and through extracts from Woolf’s novel Mrs Dalloway (1925), as well as through an analysis of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land (1922) and his review of Joyce’s Ulysses, “Ulysses, Order, and Myth” (1923). A study of the literature written during and in the aftermath of World War II ensues through the analysis of a selection of poems by W.H. Auden, Dylan Thomas, Edith Sitwell, and Ted Hughes, of George Orwell’s Animal Farm (1945), and selected chapters from Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), and through Samuel Beckett’s play Endgame (1957). A screening of Endgame, filmed in 2000 and directed by Conor McPherson, is scheduled after the two sessions devoted to the analysis of the text. The literature produced in the second half of the twentieth century is examined first through a selection of poems by Ted Hughes, Elizabeth Jennings, Philip Larkin, Seamus Heaney, and Thom Gunn, published between the late 1950s and the early 1990s, and, in addition, through a short story and a play: Doris Lessing’s “To Room Nineteen” (1963), and Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls (1982). The Rocío G. Sumillera 2 course concludes with a session on contemporary poets John Agard, Paul Muldoon, Carol Ann Duffy, and Alice Oswald. All the Readings of the Day are taken from The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. II, eight edition, edited by Stephen Greenblatt and M. H. Abrams (New York: W.W. Norton, 2006); all page numbers refer, by default, to this edition. Week 1 Day 1 General Introduction to the course Discussion of the class structure and syllabus, readings, methodology and class dynamics, assignments and assessment (percentages, essay writing, exam). Emphasis is placed on the importance of actively participating in class, on the relevance of essays, and on the fact that classes discuss the ‘Readings of the day’ following the ‘Questions to be discussed in class’ section. Day 2 Empire and colonialism Two political essays by Joseph Chamberlain (1836-1914) and J. A. Hobson (18581940), a poem by Claude McKay (1889-1948), a monologue by Louise Bennett (19192006), and George Orwell’s short story “Shooting an Elephant” (1936) make up the Readings of the Day, which through a group discussion are connected with postcolonial theories on language and literature. To this end, an overview of the postulates put forward by Edward Said (1935-2003) and Homi Bhabha (1949) is provided (Huggan, Lazarus, McLeod, Quayson, Ramazani). The contents of this session are meant to prepare the grounds for a deeper analysis of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1899), to be discussed on Days 3 and 4. Introduction to British and Irish 20th-Century Literature. A course in 28 sessions 3 READINGS OF THE DAY Joseph Chamberlain, from The True Conception of Empire (1897), pp. 1630-1632. J. A. Hobson, from Imperialism: A Study (1902), pp. 1632-1634. Claude McKay, “Old England” (1912), p. 2463-2464. Louise Bennett (aka, Miss Lou), “Jamaica Language” (1993), pp. 2469-2470. A version of this monologue, performed by the author, is available online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W58MtDzanqA George Orwell, “Shooting an Elephant” (1936), pp. 2379-2384. Questions to be discussed in class 1. Which are the three stages in Britain’s imperial history according to Joseph Chamberlain? How does he justify British rule over the colonies? How does he portray the colonies and its native inhabitants? 2. How does Hobson describe the politics of imperialism? Which are some of the figures that he gives in his 1902 study? 3. How does Claude McKay, born to a poor farm-working family in Jamaica, refer to England in his poem? Why is it significant that the poem is written in Jamaican Creole? 4. How does Louise Bennett describe Jamaican Creole? What do you think is the significance of her vindication of the language? 5. George Orwell, who worked as an officer in colonial Burma from 1922 to 1927, reflects on the nature of British colonialism in his short story “Shooting an Elephant”. In which ways does he do so? Which are his views about it? 6. The elephant in Orwell’s story has often been read symbolically. What do you think it may be a symbol of? Rocío G. Sumillera 4 Bibliography Huggan, Graham. The Oxford Handbook of Postcolonial Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Lazarus, Neil, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Postcolonial Literary Studies. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. López, Alfred J. Postcolonial Whiteness: A Critical Reader on Race and Empire. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. McLeod, John, ed. The Routledge Companion to Postcolonial Studies. London: Routledge, 2007. Quayson, Ato. The Cambridge Companion to the Postcolonial Novel. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Ramazani, Jahan. The Cambridge Companion to Postcolonial Poetry. Cambridge; New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2017. Introduction to British and Irish 20th-Century Literature. A course in 28 sessions 5 Week 2 Day 3 Empire and colonialism: Joseph Conrad This session discusses Section 1 of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1899) with a particular focus on, on the one hand, representations of colonial practices (Francis, White) and, on the other, style and narrative techniques (Adams, Graham, Greaney, Lothe). READINGS OF THE DAY Joseph Conrad, from Heart of Darkness (1899), Section 1 (pp. 1890-1912). Questions to be discussed in class 1. How does the frame narrative of Heart of Darkness work? Which are the settings and the narrators involved? What is the effect of using such a technique? 2. How are flashbacks and flash-forwards used in Marlow’s storytelling? How does this affect the story? What is the effect of such management of time? 3. How are images of light / white(ness) and dark(ness) / black(ness) used in the novel from its very opening aboard the ship on the Thames? 4. How are the Manager and the Company men described? And the workings of the Company itself? How are the working native men depicted? What is the overall effect of such descriptions? What do they say about practices of colonialism? 5. Rivers have great pre-eminence in Conrad’s novella. How are they described and for which purposes are they used? 6. Who is “Mr Kurtz”? How is he described in Section 1? Rocío G. Sumillera 6 Bibliography Adams, R. “The Ambiguous Beginning of Heart of Darkness”, in Readings on Joseph Conrad, ed. by Clarice Swisher. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 1998, pp. 116-121. Francis, Andrew, “Postcolonial Conrad”, in The New Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad, ed. by J. H. Stape. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp. 147-159. Graham, Kenneth, “Conrad and Modernism”, in The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad, ed. by J. H. Stape. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 203-222. Greaney, Michael, “Conrad’s Style”, in The New Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad, ed. by J. H. Stape. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp. 102-115. Lothe, Jakob, “Conradian Narrative”, in The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad, ed. by J. H. Stape. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 160-178. White, Andrea, “Conrad and Imperialism”, in The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad, ed. by J. H. Stape. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 179-202. Introduction to British and Irish 20th-Century Literature. A course in 28 sessions 7 Day 4 Empire and colonialism: Joseph Conrad (continued) This session examines Sections 2 and 3 of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness; political readings of the novella as well as matters of style and narrative technique continue to be considered. To spark further debates, students are presented with extracts from Conrad’s “An Outpost of Progress” (1897), where he reflects on the six months that he spent in Africa, in Congo in particular, and with other selected extracts from his essay “Geography and Some Explorers” (1924), where he throws some light on episodes of his life that directly relate to his novella. READINGS OF THE DAY Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Sections 2 and 3 (pp. 1912-1947). Questions to be discussed in class 1. There are several references throughout the story to the El Dorado expedition. Why do you think that is? 2. On page 1915, Marlow reflects aloud on their situation, and concludes the following: “When you have to attend to things of that sort, to the mere incidents of the surface, the reality—the reality, I tell you—fades. The inner truth is hidden—luckily, luckily”. How do you interpret these words? What do you think it is meant by ‘the reality’? 3. In which terms are the jungle and, more generally, nature described? How does humankind fit in these descriptions? 4. On page 1926, Marlow affirms that “All Europe contributed to the making of Kurtz”. What does he mean by this? How is Marlow’s return to Europe? How does he describe being back? Rocío G. Sumillera 8 5. How do you interpret Kurtz’s cries “The horror! The horror!”? What do you think he means by this? What is the significance of Marlow’s lying about them to Kurtz’s fiancée? 6. Heart of Darkness has often been described as a tale of intrigue and mystery. How are these built in the narrative? If there is a mystery to be solved, what is it? Bibliography Brantlinger, Patrick. “Victorians and Africans: The Genealogy of the Myth of the Dark Continent”, Critical Inquiry, 12.1 (1985): 166-203. Conrad, Joseph. “An Outpost of Progress”, in Tales of Unrest, ed. by Allan Simmons and J. H. Stape. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012, pp. 198-206. Conrad, Joseph. “Geography and Some Explorers”, in Last Essays, ed. by H. Ray Stevens, J. H. Stape and Owen Knowles. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010, pp. 3-22. Coroneos, Con. Space, Conrad, and Modernity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Knowles, Owen and Gene M. Moore, eds. The Oxford Reader’s Companion to Conrad. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Simmons, Allan H. “Reading Heart of Darkness”, in The New Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad, ed. by J. H. Stape. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp. 15-18. Watts, Cedric. “Heart of Darkness”, in The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad, ed. by J. H. Stape. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 45-62. Introduction to British and Irish 20th-Century Literature. A course in 28 sessions 15 Day 8 Modernism in prose fiction: James Joyce (continued) This session revolves around the second half of Joyce’s short story “The Dead”, which begins on p. 2185, right when the dinner starts. Through a group discussion, the building of the story towards the culminating moment of the epiphany is analyzed; special attention is given to the ending of the story and its symbolism. From the 1987 film adaptation of the short story directed by John Huston, and similarly entitled The Dead, two scenes are screened in class: o the moment when Gretta listens to the song ‘The Lass of Aughrim’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1CP5Lz2iHE o the final scene, i.e. the conversation between Gabriel and Gretta: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXHHHdrc-Q8 A final recapitulation of some of the most salient traits of Joyce’s style and, more generally, of Modernism, ensues as a means of a conclusion (Butler, Gibbons, Parsons, Trotter). READINGS OF THE DAY James Joyce, from “The Dead”, pp. 2185-2199. Questions to be discussed in class 1. How would you describe Gabriel’s annual speech at the dinner table? What does Gabriel talk about? What kind of language does he use to do so? 2. What would you say is the climax of the story? Why? How does the short story build up towards it? 3. What is the role that music has in this short story? In which ways is it present throughout and what kinds of purposes does it serve? 4. Joyce’s “The Dead” is often used to illustrate the concept of epiphany. When does the epiphany exactly happen in this short story? What is it revealed and who realizes what? Rocío G. Sumillera 16 5. Who are ‘the dead’ in the short story? How is death present in one way or another throughout? 6. What is the symbolism of snow in “The Dead”? What is its significance at the end of the story? Bibliography Butler, Christopher. “Joyce the Modernist”, in The Cambridge Companion to James Joyce, ed. by Derek Attridge. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. 67-86. Ellmann, Maud. The Nets of Modernism: Henry James, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, and Sigmund Freud. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Gibbons, Luke. “‘Ghostly Light’: Spectres of Modernity in James Joyce’s and John Huston’s ‘The dead’”, in A Companion to James Joyce, ed. by Richard Brown. Malden, MA; Oxford: Blackwell Pub., 2008, pp. 359-373. Parsons, Deborah L. Theorists of the Modernist Novel: James Joyce, Dorothy Richardson, Virginia Woolf. Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Routledge, 2007. Trotter, David. “The Modernist Novel”, in The Cambridge Companion to Modernism, ed. by Michael H. Levenson. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011, pp. 70-99. Introduction to British and Irish 20th-Century Literature. A course in 28 sessions 17 Week 5 Day 9 Training session for Essay 1 Both Essays 1 and 2 require having read in full the pieces discussed in class as well as another work (which may be an essay, a short story, a poem or a set of poems) that somehow relates to the material covered in class and that fosters critical re-readings and further analysis. ESSAY TOPICS FOR ESSAY 1 Choose one of the following topics to write your first essay: 1. In his short story collection The Martian Chronicles (1950), Ray Bradbury (19202012) chronicles how humans colonize Mars and thus come into conflict with the native Martians. After reading the selection from The Martian Chronicles, discuss 1) similarities and differences in the account of the encounter between earthlings and Martians with respect to H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds, and 2) the practices of colonization described. 2. Discuss the portrayal of the figure of the World War I soldier drawing from the poems and other texts discussed in class as well as from “Introduction to the Trenches”, by the imagist poet Richard Aldington (1892-1962), who narrates a soldier’s first night in No Man’s Land in the trenches of Belgium in 1916. 3. After reading the selection from Chinua Achebe’s 1977 essay An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (pp. 2709-2714), write an essay expressing your dis/agreement with it. Rocío G. Sumillera 18 4. Leonard Woolf, husband to Virginia Woolf, authored in 1921 the short story “Pearls and Swine”, set in colonial Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), which has been described as a tale of imperialism. Write an essay on the similarities and differences between Conrad and Woolf in their treatment of colonialism in general and, in particular, through characters such as, respectively, Kurtz and White. 5. Like “The Dead”, James Joyce’s “Araby” (pp. 2168-2172) is also part of his short story collection Dubliners, and like “The Dead”, there is also a moment in which a character has an epiphany. Discuss the similarities and differences between the two epiphanies and how the narration is built towards those moments of revelation. 6. After reading the short story “Ivy Day in the Committee Room”, also included in James Joyce’s Dubliners, write an essay on the portrayal of political debates about Ireland in the two short stories. Introduction to British and Irish 20th-Century Literature. A course in 28 sessions 19 Day 10 Modernism in poetry: T. S. Eliot The session opens with a group discussion of T.S. Eliot’s review “Ulysses, Order, and Myth” (1923), published in the Modernist literary journal The Dial, where Eliot (18881965) praises James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922) and acknowledges the relevance of Joyce’s work and its techniques to capture modern consciousness. Then, The Waste Land (1922) is examined as a Modernist poetic endeavour to depict the disillusionment of postWorld War I society, and it is noted how the reasons for which Eliot praises Joyce’s Ulysses coincide with his own poetic tenets in operation in the poem. Finally, “Imagisme; A Few Don’ts by an Imagiste” (1913), by Ezra Pound, who would incidentally define The Waste Land as “an emotional unit”, is read against Eliot’s work and connected with it to advance the discussion of the innovative formal techniques used in the poem to capture the crisis following the Great War; emphasis is placed on the poem’s structure, symbolism, and use of mythological references (Blistein, Booth, Davidson, Litz, Rabat , Rainey, Sharratt). READINGS OF THE DAY T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land (1922), pp. 2295-2308. T. S. Eliot, “Ulysses, Order, and Myth” (1923). * British actor Sir Alec Guinness recorded a reading of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land available online: https://soundcloud.com/ludifex/sets/alec-guinness-the-waste-land (Running time: 24 mins.); T. S. Eliot himself also recorded a reading of his poem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqvhMeZ2PlY (Running time: 26 mins.) Questions to be discussed in class 1. For which reasons does T.S. Eliot praise Joyce’s Ulysses? What does Eliot’s review argue Joyce does in the novel that previous authors had not done? Why does Eliot think that Joyce’s way of writing is more suitable to capture the experiences of his time? 2. In which ways and for which purposes are mythological references as well as historical ones used throughout The Waste Land? Rocío G. Sumillera 20 3. What does each of the five sections of the poem discuss? How are the titles of each of the sections meaningful? What does such an arrangement suggest? 4. Which are some of the most common rhetorical figures in the poem? For which purposes are they used? What is their effect? 5. What would you say are some of the major symbols in the poem? What do you think they mean? 6. How does The Waste Land portray the aftermath of World War I? Bibliography Blistein, Burton. The Design of The Waste Land. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 2008. Booth, Allyson. Reading The Waste Land from the Bottom Up. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. Davidson, Harriet. “Improper Desire: Reading The Waste Land”, in The Cambridge Companion to T.S. Eliot, ed. by Anthony David Moody. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp. 121-131. Litz, A. Walton, ed. Eliot in His Time: Essays on the Occasion of the Fiftieth Anniversary of The Waste Land. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1973. Rabat , Jean-Michel. “Tradition and T.S. Eliot”, in The Cambridge Companion to T.S. Eliot, ed. by Anthony David Moody. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp. 210-222. Rainey, Lawrence. “With Automatic Hand: The Waste Land”, in The New Cambridge Companion to T.S. Eliot, ed. by Jason Harding. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2017, pp. 71-88. Sharratt, Bernard. “Eliot: Modernism, Postmodernism, and After”, in The Cambridge Companion to T.S. Eliot, ed. by Anthony David Moody. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp. 223-235. Introduction to British and Irish 20th-Century Literature. A course in 28 sessions 21 Week 6 Day 11 Modernism in prose fiction: Virginia Woolf This session opens with a group discussion of the main features that Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) identifies in her essay “Modern Fiction” (1921) in the literature produced by herself and her Georgian contemporaries as opposed to that of their Edwardian predecessors, with a focus on the notion and treatment of ‘character’ (Froula, a; Goldman). Through the study of her essay, the principles of Modernism are reviewed. Selected extracts from her essay “Poetry, Fiction and the Future” (1927) are additionally presented to students in class to further the discussion and continue illustrating her ideas on modern fiction (Lee, Whitworth). Then, selected episodes from Woolf’s novel Mrs Dalloway (1925) are studied; these concern the characters of Septimus Warren Smith, a World War I veteran, and his Italian wife, Lucrezia (Rezia) Smith. The aim of this analysis is to identify in practice the principles of Woolf’s fiction as explained in her essays; particular attention is paid to the characterization of Septimus Warren Smith and the representation in the novel of shell shock, later on renamed Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (Froula, b). READINGS OF THE DAY Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), “Modern Fiction” (1921), pp. 2087-2092. Virginia Woolf, from Mrs Dalloway (1925). Questions to be discussed in class 1. How does Virginia Woolf assess the fiction produced by authors of the previous generation? In which terms does she refer particularly to H.G. Wells and to Conrad? Why? 2. What is the role of impressions in the way Woolf constructs her narrative? What effect does that have upon her way of writing? Rocío G. Sumillera 22 3. In which terms does Woolf talk about the work of James Joyce? How does she affirm that Joyce goes about writing his novels? 4. How are flashbacks important in the portrayal of the character of Septimus Warren Smith in Mrs Dalloway? What function do they serve? 5. How are the inner thoughts of both Septimus and his wife Lucrezia narrated? Which kinds of techniques does Woolf use to allow readers into their consciousness? 6. How were Septimus’s mental issues understood at the time by physicians? What is he advised to do to improve his condition? Why do you think a character such as Septimus was included in the novel? Bibliography Froula, Christine (a). “Civilization and ‘My Civilisation’: Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Avant-Garde”, in Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Avant-Garde: War, Civilization, Modernity. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005, pp. 134. Froula, Christine (b). “Mrs. Dalloway’s Postwar Elegy: Women, War, and the Art of Mourning”, in Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Avant-Garde: War, Civilization, Modernity. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005, pp. 87-128. Goldman, Jane. “From Mrs. Dalloway to The Waves: New Elegy and Lyric Experimentalism”, in The Cambridge Companion to Virginia Woolf, ed. by Susan Sellers. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010, pp. 4969. Lee, Hermione. “Virginia Woolf’s Essays”, in The Cambridge Companion to Virginia Woolf, ed. by Susan Sellers. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010, pp. 91-108. Whitworth, Michael H. “Virginia Woolf, Modernism and Modernity”, in The Cambridge Companion to Virginia Woolf, ed. by Susan Sellers. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010, pp. 146-164. Woolf, Virginia. “Poetry, Fiction and the Future”, in Selected Essays, ed. by David Bradshaw. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2008, pp. 74-84. Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway, ed. by Anne E. Fernald. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Introduction to British and Irish 20th-Century Literature. A course in 28 sessions 23 Day 12 Modernism in prose fiction: Virginia Woolf (continued) This session revolves around a group discussion of Chapters I to IV of Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own” (1929), which particularly consider the issues of women and privacy, economic independence, and creative genius. Writing practices of women writers and the literary output of some of the most famous female writers up to the moment of the publication of Woolf’s essay are reviewed, and the perception on the part of male authors of women and the portrayal of women in their work briefly discussed (DeSalvo, Froula). Through Woolf’s essay, the situation of women in the first decades of twentieth-century Britain is examined (Black, Marcus), and an introduction to the British suffrage and early feminist movements is provided (Smith, Wingerden). READINGS OF THE DAY Virginia Woolf, “A Room of One’s Own” (1929), Chapters I-IV, pp. 2092-2133. Questions to be discussed in class 1. How does Virginia Woolf use the analysis of poetry in Chapter I to put forward her argument on women and writing? What does she conclude from her analyses? 2. What does Woolf say about male authors writing about women in Chapter II of her essay? What are the effects that, according to Woolf, that has? Which kinds of quotations from male authors does she use to back up her argument? 3. How does Woolf use personal stories and anecdotes to build her case? Consider, for instance, the story Woolf tells about her aunt Mary Beton and her reflections on the life in her ‘little street’ (Chapter II). What are stories such as those meant to illustrate? 4. What does Woolf conclude from her speculation in Chapter III about what would have happened to a woman with Shakespeare’s genius in Shakespeare’s days? 5. How does Woolf assess the works of Aphra Behn, Jane Austen, George Eliot and the Brontë sisters in Chapter V? Rocío G. Sumillera 24 6. Why is Woolf’s essay entitled “A Room of One’s Own”? What is the correlation established between economic independence and literary production? Bibliography Black, Naomi. Virginia Woolf as Feminist. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004. DeSalvo, Louise A. “Shakespeare’s Other Sister”, in New Feminist Essays on Virginia Woolf, ed. by Jane Marcus. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1981, pp. 6181. Froula, Christine. “A Fin in a Waste of Waters: Women, Genius, Freedom in Orlando, A Room of One’s Own, and The Waves”, in Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Avant-Garde: War, Civilization, Modernity. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005, pp. 175-212. Marcus, Laura. “Woolf’s Feminism and Feminism’s Woolf”, in The Cambridge Companion to Virginia Woolf, ed. by Susan Sellers. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010, pp. 163-200. Smith, Harold L. The British Women’s Suffrage Campaign, 1866-1928. Harlow, England; New York: Pearson/Longman, 2007. Wingerden, Sophia A Van. The Women’s Suffrage Movement in Britain, 1866-1928. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan Press; New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999. Introduction to British and Irish 20th-Century Literature. A course in 28 sessions 31 5. What are the ‘Two Minutes Hate’? Why does the Party institutionalize (and encourage) public expressions of rage during them? 6. How is the past presented and described in the novel? In which ways and for which purposes is it rewritten? How is that done? What does that say about the way history is understood? Bibliography Carr, Craig L. Orwell, Politics, and Power. New York: Continuum, 2010. Chapman, David W. “A Comment on Teaching Argument and the Rhetoric of Orwell’s ‘Politics and the English Language’”, College English, 58.4 (1996): 483-485. Claeys, Gregory. “The Origins of Dystopia: Wells, Huxley and Orwell”, in The Cambridge Companion to Utopian Literature, ed. by Gregory Claeys. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010, pp. 107-134. Crick, Bernard. “Nineteen Eighty-Four: Context and Controversy”, in The Cambridge Companion to George Orwell, ed. by John Rodden. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp. 146-159. Fowler, Roger. The Language of George Orwell. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan Press, 1995. Harris, Harold J. “Orwell’s Essays and 1984”, Twentieth Century Literature, 4.4 (1959): 154-161. Marks, Peter. “Where He Wrote: Periodicals and the Essays of George Orwell”, Twentieth Century Literature, 41.4 (1995): 266-283. Orwell, George. All Art is Propaganda: Critical Essays, ed. by George Packer. Orlando: Harcourt, 2008. Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four. London: Penguin, 2004. Tibbetts, A. M. “What Did Orwell Think about the English Language?”, College Composition and Communication, 29.2 (1978): 162-166. Rocío G. Sumillera 32 Day 16 Feedback and discussion: Essay 1 Week 9 Day 17 Training session for Essay 2 Both Essays 1 and 2 require having read in full the pieces discussed in class as well as another work (which may be an essay, a short story, a poem or a set of poems) that somehow relates to the material covered in class and that fosters critical re-readings and further analysis. ESSAY TOPICS FOR ESSAY 2 Choose one of the following topics to write your second essay: 1. Read T. S. Eliot’s essay “Tradition and the Individual Talent” (1919) (pp. 23192325), and discuss The Waste Land and “Ulysses, Order, and Myth” in the light of it. 2. Read Virginia Woolf’s short story “The Mark on the Wall” (1917) (pp. 2082-2087) and discuss it in connection with her essay “Modern Fiction”. How does the short story comply with the features of Modernism? 3. Could “A Room of One’s Own” be considered a Modernist essay? Discuss its structure and how it integrates stories and elements of fiction to construct its argument. 4. Compare W.H. Auden’s poem “Spain” and George Orwell’s essay “Looking Back on the Spanish War”. How do the two authors approach the Spanish conflict in their texts? Introduction to British and Irish 20th-Century Literature. A course in 28 sessions 33 5. In “Politics and the English Language”, George Orwell affirms that “if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought”. Discuss how this idea is illustrated in Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. 6. Compare and contrast the views on writing and the motivations to write as put forward by W. H. Auden’s “Poetry as Memorable Speech”, Virginia Woolf’s “Modern Fiction” and “A Room of One’s Own”, and George Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language” and “Why I Write”. Rocío G. Sumillera 34 Day 18 Post WWII drama; the Theatre of the Absurd: Samuel Beckett This is the first of the two sessions on the one-act play Endgame (1957) by Samuel Beckett (1906-1989). After an introduction to the characteristics of Samuel Beckett’s oeuvre, as a playwright as well as a prose fiction writer, and of the Theatre of the Absurd, contextualized in post-WWII Europe (Esslin, Webb, Weller, Worton), the first half of the play (in terms of page-count) is analysed. Students are to enumerate what they identify as defining features of the play with regard to the uses of dialogue and monologue (and dialectical monologue), its setting and atmosphere, and the nature of the characters involved (Riquelme, Shields). READINGS OF THE DAY Samuel Beckett, from Endgame (1957), pp. 2394-2407. As an introduction to Samuel Beckett’s life and work, listen to the BBC Radio 4 “Great Lives” (Series 23) on Samuel Beckett: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b00wqbjq (Running time: 30 mins.) Questions to be discussed in class 1. Discuss the setting of the play. How are stage directions used to create its particular atmosphere? 2. The play opens with a long dialogue between Clov and Hamm. Who are these two characters? How would you describe them? Which kind of relationship do they have? 3. When Nell appears onstage, there is a change in the dynamics of the conversation, and Nell and Nagg then sustain a long dialogue. How is it different from the one between Clov and Hamm at the beginning of the play? 4. What do you think is suggested by Nagg and Nell being in dustbins throughout the play? 5. Both Nagg and Hamm give a long speech each. What do they talk about then and in which terms do they do so? What is the effect of these long speeches? Introduction to British and Irish 20th-Century Literature. A course in 28 sessions 35 6. How are stage directions, which Beckett was known to be scrupulous about, used for characterisation purposes? In which ways to they provide information to take aboard when performing the text? Bibliography Esslin, Martin. “Samuel Beckett: The Search for the Self”, in The Theatre of the Absurd. New York: Vintage Books, 2004, pp. 29-91. Riquelme, John Paul. “Staging the Modernist Monologue as Capable Negativity: Beckett’s ‘A Piece of Monologue’ between and beyond Eliot and Joyce”, in The Edinburgh Companion to Samuel Beckett and the Arts, ed. by S E Gontarski. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014, pp. 397-408. Shields, Paul. “What We are Given to Mean: Endgame”, in A Companion to Samuel Beckett, ed. by S E Gontarski. Chichester, U.K.; Malden, Mass.: WileyBlackwell, 2010, pp. 296-307. Webb, Eugene. “Introduction: Beckett and the Philosophical Tradition of the Absurd”, in The Plays of Samuel Beckett. Seattle: University Of Washington Press, 2014, pp. 13-25. Weller, Shane. “Beckett and Late Modernism”, in The New Cambridge Companion to Samuel Beckett, ed. by Dirk van Hulle. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp. 89-102. Worton, M. “Waiting for Godot and Endgame: Theatre as Text”, in The Cambridge Companion to Beckett, ed. by John Pilling. Cambridge; New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp. 67-87. Rocío G. Sumillera 36 Week 10 Day 19 Post WWII drama; the Theatre of the Absurd: Samuel Beckett (continued) This second session on Beckett’s play Endgame focuses on the second half of the play (in terms of page-count), and particularly on power playing, power relations, and the notion of game. In this regard the master-servant relationship between Hamm and Clov is examined in more detail. Special emphasis is placed on the soliloquies, as well as on the construction of dialogue and its musicality (Frost), and on the humorous and comic elements of the play (Cascetta, Topsfield). Extracts from Theodor Adorno’s essay “Trying to Understand Endgame” (1958) are presented to students in class to encourage further debate and to connect Beckett’s theatrical endeavours with philosophical postulates, particularly those of French Existentialism (Adorno, Morin, Murphy). READINGS OF THE DAY Samuel Beckett, Endgame (1957), pp. 2408-2420. Questions to be discussed in class 1. Why do you think Endgame is entitled precisely like that? Which elements of game playing pervade the play? What does the idea of an ‘end-’ suggest and in which ways is it present throughout the play? 2. How do power relations operate in the play? Consider particularly the case of Clov and Hamm. 3. Hamm is given in this second half three long speeches, including the final soliloquy. Which are the contents of each of them? How do you interpret his concluding soliloquy? 4. There are numerous allusions to God and the Bible in Endgame. How do you interpret these? Which purposes do you think they serve? Introduction to British and Irish 20th-Century Literature. A course in 28 sessions 37 5. Identify and discuss the comic and humorous moments in the play. How is that humour constructed? 6. How would you describe the dialogue in this play? Do you find there is any special significance in the musicality of the words? What role does sound have in the construction of dialogue? Bibliography Adorno, Theodor W. “Trying to Understand Endgame”, New German Critique, 26 (1982): 119-150. Cascetta, Annamaria. “Dianoetic Laughter in Tragedy: Accepting Finitude—Beckett’s Endgame”, in The Edinburgh Companion to Samuel Beckett and the Arts, ed. by S. E. Gontarski. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014, pp. 423-432. Frost, Everett C. “‘The Sound is Enough’: Beckett’s Radio Plays”, in The Edinburgh Companion to Samuel Beckett and the Arts, ed. by S. E. Gontarski. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014, pp. 251-268. Morin, Emilie. “Endgame and Shorter Plays: Religious, Political and other Readings”, in The New Cambridge Companion to Samuel Beckett, ed. by Dirk van Hulle. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp. 60-72. Murphy, P.J. “Beckett and the Philosophers”, in The Cambridge Companion to Beckett, ed. by John Pilling. Cambridge; New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp. 222-240. Topsfield, Valerie. The Humour of Samuel Beckett. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1988. Rocío G. Sumillera 38 Day 20 Screening of the play Endgame, by Samuel Beckett The 2000 film adaptation of Endgame, as directed by the Irish playwright, screenwriter and director Conor McPherson, is screened in class (Running time: 1h. 21mins.). The screening is followed by a group discussion of some of the key topics previously examined in class about the text of the play, which is compared and contrasted with its performance; a discussion of the changing attitudes on the part of students after seeing the play performed concludes the session. Screening of the production… Endgame, directed by Conor McPherson (2000). Running time: 1h. 21mins. Cast: Michael Gambon ... Hamm David Thewlis ... Clov Jean Anderson ... Nell Charles Simon ... Nagg To be discussed after the screening 1. How are the humorous and comic elements of the text performed? Did you find them funnier when read or onstage? Why? 2. How are the soliloquies rendered in the adaptation? Has there been anything unexpected in their performance? 3. How does dialogue between the different characters contribute to creating a specific pace? How does this pace change depending on who participates in the conversation? 4. Have power relations become more or less apparent in the performance as compared to when you read the text? Why do you think that is? 5. How does the physicality of the performance implement the indications provided in the stage directions? Has this surprised you in any way? 6. Has your perception of the musicality of the dialogue changed after seeing the play performed? Introduction to British and Irish 20th-Century Literature. A course in 28 sessions 39 Week 11 Day 21 Post 1950s poetry This session focuses on the poetic production of a selection of authors who were part of the so-called “The Movement”, and who reclaimed traditional and conventional verse over Modernist forms—namely, Philip Larkin (1922-1985), Elizabeth Jennings (19262001), Ted Hughes (1930-1998) and Thom Gunn (1929-2004). A selection of their poetry spanning from the 1950s to the 1990s is explored in connection with Seamus Heaney’s essay “Englands of the Mind” (1976). In this publication Heaney (1939-2013) elaborates on his notion of post-1945 poetry in English and takes the poetry of Ted Hughes, Geoffrey Hill, and Philip Larkin as examples (Bradley, Falci, Ingelbien, Larrissy, Rosenthal, Sheppard). Finally, two poems by Heaney are also included as part of the Readings of the Day to illustrate his own poetic work, which he began in the 1960s. READINGS OF THE DAY Ted Hughes, “Wind” (1957), pp. 2594-2595; “Relic” (1957), p. 2595; “Pike” (1960), pp. 2595-2596. Elizabeth Jennings, “The Painter” (1957), “A Summing-Up” (1969). Philip Larkin, “High Windows” (1967), p. 2570; “Sad Steps” (1974), p. 2571; “This Be the Verse” (1974), pp. 2572-2573; “Aubade” (1977), pp. 2573-2574. Seamus Heaney, “Digging” (1966), pp. 2824-2825; “Casualty” (1976), pp. 2828-2830; selection from “Englands of the Mind” (1976). Thom Gunn, “Black Jackets” (1961), p. 2583; “Still Life” (1992), p. 2585; “The Missing” (1992), pp. 2585-2586. A recording of Ted Hughes reading his poem “Pike” is available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4tZE98hRsU A recording of Philip Larkin reading his poem “Aubade” is available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDr_SRhJs80 Rocío G. Sumillera 40 A reading and an explanation by Seamus Heaney of his poem “Digging” is available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvneazagsRI Questions to be discussed in class 1. How are natural elements and animals used by Ted Hughes in his poems? For which purposes are they used? In which ways are they present in metaphors? 2. How does Philip Larkin reflect about the past and the present in his poetry? How is religion a presence in it? How does humour work in “This Be the Verse”? 3. How does Seamus Heaney’s “Digging” weave recollections of his family with observations on his own poetry writing? What is the effect of the repetition of the word “digging” in several moments of the poem? 4. In which terms does Seamus Heaney describe the poetry of Philip Larkin and Ted Hughes in his essay “Englands of the Mind”? How do they differ according to Heaney? What do they have in common? 5. How does Elizabeth Jennings’s “The Painter” and “Still Life” use the rhetorical figure of ekphrasis? Why is it fitting for Jennings to use the sonnet form in “A Summing-Up”? 6. How does Thom Gunn reflect on the death of his friends of AIDS in “Still Life” and “The Missing”? Bibliography Bradley, Jerry. The Movement: British Poets of the 1950s. New York: Maxwell Macmillan International, 1993. Falci, Eric. The Cambridge Introduction to British Poetry, 1945-2010. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Heaney, Seamus, “Englands of the Mind”, in Finders Keepers: Selected Prose, 19712001. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002, pp. 81-102. Ingelbien, Raphaël. “Seamus Heaney and the Importance of Larkin”, Journal of Modern Literature, 23.3/4 (2000): 471-482. Introduction to British and Irish 20th-Century Literature. A course in 28 sessions 47 5. On 8th August 1982, the critic Dick Vosburgh wrote for Punch a review of the play in the form of a dialogue between himself and a psychiatrist. Analyse the review and discuss the kind of criticism Churchill had to face for her play: Psychiatrist: And what exactly is troubling you, Mr Vosburgh? Vosburgh: Well Doc, Sheridan Morley is on holiday and I’m standing in for him at Punch, and last night I…think I went to the Royal Court and saw a play by Caryl Churchill called Top Girls. Psychiatrist: What do you mean you think? Why aren’t you sure you saw this play? Vosburgh: Well, because it…it seems it opened in a restaurant where Marlene, a pushy modern executive, was welcoming her dinner guests: Isabella Bird (18311904), who became a famous world traveller at the age of 40, Lady Nijo, a thirteenth century blonde Japonese courtesan who later became a Buddhist nun, Dull Gret, the subject of the Brueghel painting, Patient Griselda, from the Canterbury Tales, and Joan, who posed as a man and was Pope from 1854 to 1856. Psychiatrist: I see. Vosburgh: It seems there was a long, very funny scene in which they all talked about their lives, only I missed a lot of it. You see there was a lot of overlapping dialogue because the director, Max Stafford-Clark, would obviously have given his hyphen to have directed Citizen Kane. And there was a scene between two kids—teenage girl and a younger one, only they’re both played by grown-ups… Psychiatrist: You say this was a play? It sounds more like a revue. Vosburgh: I know. […] Then we’re suddenly into what looks like a slice of a fascinating play about the pushy modern executive and her sister and the teenager we met earlier… Psychiatrist: Mr Vosburgh, will you please take this sedative. You are not a well man—there couldn’t possibly be such a play as you describe! 6. Discuss Churchill’s play in connection with Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own”. How has the debate about women in the workforce changed since the early twentieth century? Is there anything that remains the same? How are Woolf’s and Churchill’s concerns similar to and different from each other? Bibliography Betsko, Kathleen and Rachel Koenig, eds. “Caryl Churchill”, in Interviews with Contemporary Women Playwrights. New York: Beech Tree Books, 1987, pp. 75-84. Patterson, Michael. Strategies of Political Theatre: Post-War British Playwrights. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Peacock, Keith. Thatcher’s Theatre: British Theatre and Drama in the Eighties. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1999. Rocío G. Sumillera 48 Week 13 Day 25 Screening of the play Top Girls, by Caryl Churchill Screening of 1991 BBC TV staging of Caryl Churchill’s play, directed by Max Stafford-Clark. The screening is followed by a group discussion of some of the key topics previously examined in class about the text of the play, which is compared and contrasted with its performance; a discussion of the changing attitudes on the part of students after seeing the play performed concludes the session. Screening of the production… Top Girls, directed by Max Stafford-Clark (1991). Running time: 112 mins. Contributors Directed By: Max Stafford-Clark Producer: Simon Curtis Marlene: Lesley Manville Isabella Bird/Joyce/Mrs Kidd: Deborah Findlay LadyNijo/Win: Sarah Lam Dull Gret/Angie: Lesley Sharp Popejoan/Louise: Cecily Hobbs Patient Griselda/Nell/Jeanine: Anna Patrick Waitress/Kit/Shona: Beth Goddard BBC description: https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/68c4e34c44f34122954e7c3b888be5b0 “Widely regarded as one of the best new plays of the 80s, Caryl Churchill's awardwinning Top Girls was first seen at London's Royal Court Theatre in 1982 directed by Max Stafford-Clark. This first TV production (in association with the Royal Court) is also directed by Stafford-Clark and features two of the original all-female cast. Seven actresses take 16 roles in this uncompromising assessment of high-profile and low-profile women, part fantasy, part hard-nosed reality. Marlene celebrates her new position as managing director of the Top Girls Appointment Agency by giving a dinner party for five oddly assorted women from centuries past. But Marlene's own past will throw a question mark over her Top Girls success. The author describes her play as "a celebration of the extraordinary achievements of women".” Introduction to British and Irish 20th-Century Literature. A course in 28 sessions 49 Day 26 Contemporary poets This session explores a selection of poems by John Agard (1949), Paul Muldoon (1951), Carol Ann Duffy (1955), and Alice Oswald (1966) in which matters of identity, language, history, personal relations and concerns about the environment come to the fore. These four poets are taken as representatives of contemporary poetry in Britain and of its diversity of voices and concerns. Selections from a series of interviews with these authors, either printed or recorded, are used in class to illustrate their poetic tenets and their overall poetic production, which in some cases goes back to the 1980s. READINGS OF THE DAY John Agard, “Listen Mr Oxford Don” (1985), pp. 2542-2543; “Checking Out Me History” (2007). A recording of “Listen Mr Oxford Don” performed by Agard is available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ywy-Tthdg7w Paul Muldoon, “Gathering Mushrooms” (1983), pp. 2870-2871; “The Grand Conversation” (2002), pp. 2872-2873. Carol Ann Duffy, “Medusa” (1999), pp. 2875-2876; “Mrs Lazarus” (1999), pp. 28762877. Alice Oswald, “Dunt: A Poem for a Dried up River” (2007); “A Short Story of Falling” (2016); “Rain” (2016). A recording of Oswald’s “Rain” read by the author is available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71Jc2LAZOlE; a reading of her “A Short Story of Falling” is available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4rKwW5tgXk (go to min. 2) Questions to be discussed in class 1. How does John Agard, born and raised in British Guiana, blend poetic and political rebellion in “Listen Mr Oxford Don”? What does he mean by “my offence”, in the last line of the poem? 2. Paul Muldoon’s father was a farmer and a mushroom grower in Northern Ireland. How are family memories interwoven with scenes of the present in “Gathering Mushrooms”? Who is the ‘you’ of the poem? Why is the final stanza in italics? Rocío G. Sumillera 50 3. Who is having “The Grand Conversation”? What kind of information do She and He provide about themselves and their backgrounds? What do the lines “we may yet construct our future / as we’ve reconstructed our past” mean? How does Agard reconstruct his past in “Checking Out Me History”? 4. How and to what ends does Carol Ann Duffy use mythological and biblical references in, respectively, “Medusa” and “Mrs Lazarus”? What is the effect of both poems using the first person singular pronoun throughout? 5. How is water used as a symbol in Alice Oswald’s “Dunt: A Poem for a Dried up River”, “A Short Story of Falling” and “Rain”? How does it work differently in each of the poems? 6. How do repetitions (of words, phrases, and lines) construct “Dunt: A Poem for a Dried up River”? What does the effect of the repeated “try again” and its eventual replacement with “go on” suggest? Bibliography Abrahams, Cecil Anthony and Horace I. Goddard, eds. A Common Tongue: Interviews with Cecil Abrahams, John Agard, John Hearne, and Wole Soyinka. St. Laurent, Quebec: AFO, 1986. Agard, John. BBC2 “Poets in Person: John Agard”, 1 August 2012: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00wskjl Duffy, Carol Ann: BBC Radio 4 “Woman’s Hour”, 1 May 2009: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b00jzxkn Graham, Catherine. “A Conversation with Alice Oswald”, The Toronto Review of Books, October 18, 2017, https://www.torontoreviewofbooks.com/2017/10/whole-art-everythingforgetting-conversation-alice-oswald/ Holdridge, Jefferson. The Poetry of Paul Muldoon. Dublin: Liffey Press, 2008. Kendall, Tim and Peter McDonald, eds. Paul Muldoon: Critical Essays. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2004. Introduction to British and Irish 20th-Century Literature. A course in 28 sessions 51 Linnaham, Linda. “‘Look for the Doing Words’: Carol Ann Duffy and the Questions of Convention”, in Contemporary British Poetry: Essays in Theory and Criticism, ed. by James Acheson and Romana Huk. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996. Muldoon, Paul: BBC Radio 3 “The John Tusa Interviews”, 1 February 2004: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00ncyhh Oswald, Alice: BBC Radio “Bookclub”: Falling Awake (2016), 3 February 2019: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00029gc Paterson, Don and Charles Simic. New British Poetry. Saint Paul, Minn.: Graywolf Press, 2004. Rocío G. Sumillera 52 Week 14 Day 27 Feedback and discussion: Essay 2 Day 28 Final revision and mock exam MOCK EXAM QUESTIONS 1. Long Wharf Theatre’s Director of Education, Madelyn Ardito, defines in the following manner the Theatre of the Absurd: “Absurd plays rebel against traditional theatre. The plot in these plays are either nonexistent or of little significance. The plays don’t discuss an idea or argument but rather they simply-starkly present the argument. The big questions of the play are left to the spectator or audience to decide. The spectator uses their own experiences of life and ideologies to make sense of the world. The plays of Theatre of the Absurd present nonlinear plot structures that do not necessarily move in a straight line. Logic is replaced with the irrational such as repetition of dialogue, nonsense, a minimalist setting, characters that have difficulty communicating, characters that are more two dimensional than three. In general, absurd plays do not tell a story but rather present a picture.” Considering her definition, now argue why Samuel Beckett’s Endgame can be in fact placed within this theatrical current. Would you agree that the characters in Endgame are “more two dimensional than three”? 2. Identify (title of work, name of author) the following extract and discuss it in connection with the major themes this particular piece explores. How would you describe the relationship between the two speakers? How do politics and power Introduction to British and Irish 20th-Century Literature. A course in 28 sessions 53 relations shape the tensions underlying this exchange? When does this moment happen within the play? Why do you think it is placed there? Marlene: I don't mean anything personal. I don't believe in class. Anyone can do anything if they've got what it takes. Joyce: And if they haven't? Marlene: If they're stupid or lazy or frightened, I'm not going to help them get a job, why should I? Joyce: What about Angie? Marlene: What about Angie? Joyce: She's stupid, lazy and frightened, so what about her? Marlene: You run her down too much. She'll be all right. Joyce: I don't expect so, no. I expect her children will say what a wasted life she had. If she has children. Because nothing's changed and it won't with them in. Marlene: Them, them. Us and them? Joyce: And you're one of them. Marlene: And you're us, wonderful us, and Angie's us and Mum and Dad's us. Joyce: Yes, that's right, and you're them. Marlene: Come on, Joyce, what a night. You've got what it takes. Joyce: I know I have. Marlene: I didn't really mean all that. Joyce: I did. 3. Identify (title of work, name of author) the following poems and discuss them in connection with each other. What are the main themes they explore? On which rhetorical and poetical strategies do they draw to do so? a) Entrance and exit wounds are silvered clean, The track aches only when the rain reminds. The one-legged man forgets his leg of wood, The one-armed man his jointed wooden arm. The blinded man sees with his ears and hands As much or more than once with both his eyes. Their war was fought these 20 years ago And now assumes the nature-look of time, As when the morning traveller turns and views His wild night-stumbling carved into a hill. What, then, was war? No mere discord of flags But an infection of the common sky That sagged ominously upon the earth Even when the season was the airiest May. Down pressed the sky, and we, oppressed, thrust out Boastful tongue, clenched fist and valiant yard. Natural infirmities were out of mode, Rocío G. Sumillera 54 For Death was young again; patron alone Of healthy dying, premature fate-spasm. [from Robert Graves, “Recalling War” (1935)] b) After all these years I can still close my eyes and see her sitting there, in her big armchair, grotesque under an open sky, framed by the jagged lines of her broken house. Sitting there, a plump homely person, steel needles still in her work-rough hands; grey with dust, stiff with shock, but breathing, no blood or distorted limbs; breathing but stiff with shock, knitting unravelling on her apron’d knee. They have taken the stretchers off my car and I am running under the pattering flack over a mangled garden; treading on something soft and fighting the rising nausea – only a far-flung cushion, bleeding feathers. They lift her gently out of her great armchair, tenderly, under the open sky, a shock-frozen woman trailing khaki wool. [Lois Clark, “Picture from the Blitz” (1982)] 57 Day-by-day syllabus Introduction to British and Irish 20th-century literature. A course in 28 sessions WEEK 1 Day 1 General introduction to the course: Class structure, readings, assignments, assessment Day 2 Empire and colonialism Readings of the day: Joseph Chamberlain, from The True Conception of Empire (1897); J. A. Hobson, from Imperialism: A Study (1902); Claude McKay, “Old England” (1912); Louise Bennett, “Jamaica Language” (1979-81), and George Orwell, “Shooting an Elephant” (1936). WEEK 2 Day 3 Empire and colonialism: Joseph Conrad Readings of the day: Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (1899), Section 1. Day 4 Empire and colonialism: Joseph Conrad (continued) Readings of the day: Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Sections 2 and 3. WEEK 3 Day 5 Pre-WWI literature: H. G. Wells Readings of the day: H. G. Wells, from Book One of The War of the Worlds (1898) (“The Coming of the Martians”): Chapters I (“The Eve of the War”), II (“The Falling Star”), V (“The Heat-Ray”), IX (“The Fighting Begins”) and XII (“What I Saw of the Destruction of Weybridge and Shepperton”). 58 Day 6 WWI poetry Readings of the day: Rupert Brooke, “The Soldier” (1914); Edward Thomas, “Adlestrop” (1915), “Tears” (1915); Siegfried Sassoon, “They” (1916), “The Rear-Guard” (1917), “The General” (1917); Isaac Rosenberg, “Break of day in the Trenches” (1916), “Returning, We Hear the Larks” (1917); Wilfred Owen, “Anthem for Doomed Youth” (1917), “Dulce et Decorum Est” (1917); and Robert Graves, “Recalling War” (1935). WEEK 4 Day 7 Modernism in prose fiction: James Joyce Readings of the day: James Joyce, “The Dead” (1914), pp. 2172-2199. Day 8 Modernism in prose fiction: James Joyce (continued) Readings of the day: James Joyce, “The Dead”, pp. 2185-2199. WEEK 5 Day 9 Training session for Essay 1 Day 10 Modernism in poetry: T. S. Eliot Readings of the day: T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land (1922) and “Ulysses, Order, and Myth” (1923) WEEK 6 Day 11 Modernism in prose fiction: Virginia Woolf Readings of the day: Virginia Woolf, “Modern Fiction” (1921), extracts from Mrs Dalloway (1925) Day 12 Modernism in prose fiction: Virginia Woolf (continued) Reading of the day: Virginia Woolf, “A Room of One’s Own” (1929), Chapters I-IV. WEEK 7 Day 13 WWII poetry [Deadline: Essay 1] Readings of the day: W. H. Auden, “Spain” (1937), “September 1, 1939” (1939), “Poetry as Memorable Speech” (1935); Dylan Thomas, “Ceremony after a Fire Raid”; Edith Sitwell, “Still Falls the Rain” (1942); Ted Hughes, “The Casualty” (1957), “Out” (1967); Lois Clark, “Picture from the Blitz” (1982).