English 126

Book List

Conrad, Joseph: Heart of Darkness; Greene, Graham: The Third Man; Joyce, James: Ulysses; Spark, Muriel: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie; West, Rebecca: Return of the Soldier; Woolf, Virginia: The Waves

Other Readings and Media

The required books listed above will be available at University Press Books (2430 Bancroft Ave). A required course reader will be available from Metro Publishing (2440 Bancroft Ave).

Description

How did British and Irish literature change over the first half of the twentieth-century? Was “modernism” a historical moment, an aesthetic movement, or a critical attitude—or some combination of the three? How did writers contend with upheavals such as Irish nationalism, World Wars I and II, suffrage, fascism, and the fluctuations of empire? And how did conventional literary forms respond to the advents of film, radio, and television? These are some of the questions this course will try to answer. Evaluation will be based on a combination of papers, exams, and course participation.

Readings will likely include: Conrad, Heart of Darkness; Lewis et al, BLAST; West, Return of the Soldier; Joyce, Ulysses; Woolf, The Waves; Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie; Greene, The Third Man; Synge, Playboy of the Western World; manifestos by Marinetti and Loy; and poetry by Hardy, Yeats, Eliot, Auden, Smith, WWI combatants, Derek Walcott, Kamau Brathwaite, and others. 

The English Department is working on expanding the class size for this offering. If you would like to enroll in this course after it fills, please put yourself on the wait list and if we are able to accommodate you, you will be added as soon as possible (no later than the first week of classes).