SYLLABUS

 

Naziv
kolegija:

Being Irish in English

 

 

Dr. Aidan O’Malley

Irish Literature

Title of Course:
Being Irish in English:
Issues in Language, Literature and Cultural Identity in Ireland

Language: English

Duration:1 semester

Status:
Elective

Lecture and seminat

 

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 Class
Requirements: One class presentation; one
1,500-word essay; mid-term and final exams.

 

Course
Description: This course examines the manifold
implications of the language shift in Ireland in order to chart shifting
conceptions of Irish identity. It focuses on a selection of literary texts from
ca. 1600 to the present, and brings these into dialogue with the cultural and
political contexts in which they were produced. The construction of this
dialogue is facilitated by supplementing these literary texts with more
theoretical scholarship that explores the relationship between language,
specifically translation, and society.

 

Course
Objectives: 1. To introduce students to a series
of Irish authors from ca. 1600 to the present day in a manner that illustrates
how the question of the two languages in Ireland has influenced their work. 2.
To introduce students to the field of cultural translation studies.

 

Provisional Schedule 

Week 1.
Introduction: Deracination. The decline of the
Gaelic culture and the plantation of Ireland

–        
Extracts from
Edmund Spenser, A View of the Present State of Ireland

 Week
2. Introduction to Translation Studies.

–        
Extracts from
Michael Cronin Translating Ireland: Translation,
Languages, Cultures

 Week
3. The decline of a tradition: From Ó Bruadair and
Ó Rathaille to Merriman and Ó Reachtabhra

 Week
4. Translation and antiquarianism: From Brooke and
Petrie to Hardiman, Ferguson and O’Grady

 Week
5. Versions of Irishness: Thomas Moore

 Weeks
6 and 7. The Revival’s search for an English
suitable for a new country: Yeats, Lady Gregory and Synge

 Weeks
8 and 9. Joyce’s revolution

–        
Joyce, A
Portrait of the Artist

 Week
10. Beckett, ‘French author, born Ireland’

–        
Beckett,
Waiting for Godot

 Weeks
11 and 12. Flann O’Brien’s comic location between
languages

–        
Flann O’Brien,
The Poor Mouth

 Weeks
13. Translating the Irish past: Brian Friel,
Translations

 Week
14. Contemporary poetry between/in two languages:
Ní Chuilleanáin and Ní Dhomhnaill

 Week
15. Review of course and final exam