Module description
This module will consider a range of recent novels produced by Irish writers with the aim of considering the relationship between writers and the state, north and south. The module will explore what kind of difference literature can make to a society’s growing consciousness of itself. Issues to be addressed will include modernity in an Irish context, sexuality, violence, the fantastic, religion and its aftermath, the Peace Process in Northern Ireland, and the connections between literary production and the imagined ‘nation’. We propose to treat Edna O’Brien’s debut novel The Country Girls (1960), as our founding text. O’Brien has said that the Archbishop of Dublin and Charles J Haughey (who was at that time Minister for Justice) characterised the book as “filth” that “should not be allowed in any decent home”. Her first three novels were subject to multiple public burnings. It will move on to consider works by writers such as Brian Moore, John Banville, Anne Enright, Kevin Barry, Niamh Campbell, Colm Tóibín, Eoin McNamee, Anna Burns and Sally Rooney.
Assessment details
Presentation, to be submitted onto KEATS forum (15%), 3000 word essay (85%)
Educational aims & objectives
The module enables third year English literature students to consider developments in Irish fiction since 1960. In particular it will enable them to explore some of the ways in which writers have imagined and re-imagined Ireland and Irishness, from the economic revival ushered in by TK Whitaker in the late 1950s through to the Celtic Tiger and beyond. It will offer a literary sociological account of contemporary Ireland as seen through the lens of some of the most important recent fiction in English.
Learning outcomes
By the end of the module, the students will be able to demonstrate intellectual, transferable and practicable skills appropriate to a Level 6 module and in particular will be able to:
- Demonstrate detailed knowledge of the contemporary Irish novel.
- Discuss the social and cultural conditions which these works both reflect and help to shape.
- Write critical essays at an advanced undergraduate level in response to set questions on the module material.
Teaching pattern
One two-hour seminar, weekly
Suggested reading list
This list is indicative only.
- Week 1: Edna O’Brien, The Country Girls (1960)
- Week 2: John McGahern, The Dark (1965)
- Week 3: Brian Moore, Catholics (1972)
- Week 4: John Banville, The Book of Evidence (1987)
- Week 5: Eoin McNamee, Resurrection Man (1994)
- Week 6: Anne Enright, The Forgotten Waltz (2011)
- Week 7: Kevin Barry, City of Bohane (2011)
- Week 8: Anna Burns, Milkman (2018)
- Week 9: Sally Rooney, Normal People (2019)
- Week 10: Niamh Campbell, This Happy (2020)