English 190

Book List

Beckett, Samuel: Krapp's Last Tape and Other Dramatic Pieces; Beckett, Samuel: Nohow On: Company, Ill Seen Ill Said, Worstward Ho; Beckett, Samuel: Watt; Joyce, James: Ulysses; Yeats, W.B.: The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats

Other Readings and Media

A handful of critical essays will be available online and/or in a small course reader.

Description

This course will focus on the major writings by this trio of Irish modernists.  We will think about the ways in which these writers fit into and challenge international canons of modernist literature, about the Irish attachments and conditions inscribed in their works, and about the significant formal and generic innovations that each undertook.  We’ll start with Yeats’ poetry, spend much of the middle part of the semester on Joyce’s Ulysses (with a few glances at Finnegans Wake), turn back to Yeats’ late poetry, and finally work through several of Beckett’s key texts.  I will assume familiarity with Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, so please be sure to read them before the course begins.

English 190 replaced English 100 and 150 as of Fall '09. English majors may fulfill the seminar requirement for the major by taking one section of English 190 (or by having taken either English 100 or English 150 before Fall '09). Please read the paragraph on page 2 of the Announcement of Classes for more details about enrolling in or wait-listing for this course.