This seminar will focus on a variety of creative Irish texts—fictional and non-fiction, essays and documentaries, poetry, songs, plays, and films. Key questions addressed will include: how does a text re-cast or re-present a historical period or event? What does a knowledge of Irish history, politics, or culture add to our appreciation of a text?
Principal texts we investigate will include: Making History & Translations by Brian Friel (plays); A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift (satire); Cathleen ni Houlihan by WB Yeats (play); Requiem for the Croppies by Seamus Heaney (poem); Star of the Sea by Joseph O’Connor (novel); The Dead by John Houston (film); Easter 1916 by WB Yeats (poem); Michael Collins by Neil Jordan (film); and a number of key political speeches.
We’ll be making intermittent use of the five-part BBC documentary series, The Story of Ireland, in order to provide a broad historical background.
Each student will be assigned one key text and tasked with ‘introducing’ it to the class. A central part of this introduction will involve putting the text(s) into the context of Ireland’s history, politics, and culture—as well as into the span of the writer’s/artist’s career. Where feasible, students will then perform some, or all, of their assigned text.
Students will also be required to submit two written assignments in the course of the semester. The first of these will be an in-depth critical review of one text, taking into account how it relates to a particular aspect of Irish history, politics or culture. By way of a final assignment, students will be tasked with writing a 500-word (less for poems) ‘Imitation/Inspiration’ based on a creative text of their choice. Imitations will closely parallel the form and subject of the original text. Inspirations may take greater license with content or form, while still acknowledging a debt to the style or format of a particular text.
About Professor Blaney
PAUL BLANEY teaches in the English Department and the SAS Honors Program. He received his undergraduate degree in Classics from the University of Oxford and his MFA in Creative Writing (Fiction) from the University of Oregon. Paul has developed and taught several Interdisciplinary Honors Seminars over the years. These seminars bring together an interest in the culture of his native British Isles with some of the writers who have informed it. Characteristic of his teaching is a challenge to students to make their own creative responses to class materials. Paul has continued to publish his own writing (principally fiction) throughout his teaching career.