ENGL 3334: Literature of Modern Ireland
This full year course examines all genres of writing in Ireland after 1890, and
emphasizes the social and cultural contexts in which individual texts came to be written. After 1890
'Irishness' became a contested site, and we will trace the different varieties of Irishness as articulated
in the works of writers as different as W.B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, James Joyce, Elizabeth Bowen and Samuel
Beckett, as well as a range of contemporary writers, such as Patrick McCabe and Medbh McGuckian, for whom the
earlier formulations have proven inadequate/problematic. There will be a strong emphasis on issues relating to
national identity, gender and cultural politics.