Postgraduate Course: Modernism, Myth, and Romance 1880-1940 (PG Version) (ENLI11214)
Course Outline
| School | School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course addresses modernism's investment in traditional narrative forms of myth, romance, and folk tales, and the systems of thought that they embodied. |
| Course description |
Although the archetypal modernist statement was Ezra Pound's 'make it new,' much avant garde writing of the period looked to the past to understand the present. This re-evaluation of the archaic, and its tropes of ordeal, rebirth, and renewal, provided inspiration for writers wrestling with the challenges of modernity: alienation, technological acceleration, and the aftermath of the Great War; as well as de-colonial movements, the reimagining of gender roles, and the legacies of slavery. From the Celtic explorations of early W.B. Yeats to James Joyce's Homeric parallels, and from the Harlem Renaissance's adaptations of blues and jazz (rooted in West African cultural forms) to Virginia Woolf's recourse to English folk culture in the shadow of WWII, modernist writers' radical experiments in literary representation drew on the resources of the past. This course will therefore examine 'myth' and 'romance', not as a source of timeless archetypes representing an ahistorical human nature, but as a strategic resource on which writers draw in grappling with the disruptions and dislocations of modernity.
Syllabus:
W.B. Yeats, The Major Works (1889-1939)
R.L. Stevenson, 'The Beach of Falesá' (1892); extracts from In the South Seas (1896)
H.D., Selected Poems (1914-1935)
James Joyce, chapters from Ulysses (1922)
T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land (1922)
Scottish Renaissance (Hugh MacDiarmid, extract from A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle (1926); Nan Shepherd, poems from In the Cairngorms (1934))
Harlem Renaissance (selected folktales, poems, and prose works by Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes (1921 - 1942))
Virginia Woolf, Between the Acts (1941)
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
|
Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2022/23, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
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Quota: 9 |
| Course Start |
Semester 1 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
196 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
4000 Word Essay (100%) |
| Feedback |
Not entered |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- demonstrate competency in core skills in the study of English Literature: essay-writing, independent reading, group discussion, small-group autonomous learning.
- provide informed analysis of Modernist prose and poetry, in writing and in discussion.
- demonstrate knowledge of the uses of myth, romance, and folk forms and sources in Anglophone texts over a 60 year period.
- demonstrate the ability to reflect critically on a variety of critical and methodological approaches to Modernist poetry and prose.
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Reading List
Compulsory (nb, additional primary material will be made available):
W.B. Yeats, The Major Works ed. Ed Larrissy (Oxford University Press, 2008)
R.L. Stevenson, South Sea Tales ed. Rosyln Jolly (Oxford University Press, 1999)
H.D. Selected Poems ed. Louis Martz (Carcanet, 1989)
James Joyce, Ulysses: The 1922 Text ed. Jeri Johnson(Oxford University Press, 1993)
T.S. Eliot The Waste Land (available in The Norton Anthology of English Literature)
Virginia Woolf, Between the Acts (Penguin, 1992)
Recommended:
Bell, Michael, Literature, Modernism and Myth. Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Castle, Gregory, Modernism and the Celtic Revival. Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Jones, Peter, 'Introduction' to Imagist Poetry. London: Penguin Classics, 2001.
Kolocotroni, Vassiliki, et al (eds), Modernism: An Anthology of Sources and Documents. Edinburgh University Press, 1998.
Levenson, Michael, Cambridge Companion to Modernism. Cambridge University Press, 1999 |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Special Arrangements |
Jointly taught with ENLI10371 |
| Keywords | MMaR,modernism,myth,romance,scottish literature,irish literature |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr David Farrier
Tel: (0131 6)50 3607
Email: |
Course secretary | Miss Kara McCormack
Tel: (0131 6)50 3030
Email: |
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