Evening classes: "19th and 20th century literature: A Grand Tour"

dublin | education | event notice Friday July 16, 2010 10:54 by Film Qlub

Evening course: Literature and Culture of the 19th and 20th century

Do you like Books? Would you like to know more about DICKENS, WILDE, WOOLF, BRONTË...
and other classic writers? Are you interested in how radical and conservative ideas shape culture? We have the course for you!

“19th and 20th Century Literature: A Grand Tour ”

DATE & TIME: Mondays 7:30-9:30pm, 27 Sep-6 Dec (10 evening classes)
LOCATION: Adult Education Centre, UCD Buses 10, 11, 46A... 20 min walk from DART.
INFORMATION: 01-7167123, www.ucd.ie/adulted/

PREVIOUS KNOWLEDGE OF LITERATURE IS NOT REQUIRED.
A LOVE OF BOOKS IS ESSENTIAL.

COURSE TITLE
19th and 20th CENTURY LITERATURE: A GRAND TOUR

COURSE DESCRIPTION

What do these writers have in common? Oscar Wilde, Virginia Woolf, Charlotte Brontë, Henry James, H. Rider Haggard, Kate O’Brien, Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Dickens. Some critics would say that they have nothing in common. In this course, we will prove otherwise, showing that there is a sense of continuity between these accessible writers. We will look at novels, plays, films, and other multi-media texts, focusing on some key concepts: psychology, imperialism, industrialization, equality, national identity. Two tutors, one specializing in the 19th century and another in the 20th, will take you on a Grand Tour, from the attic of Thornfield Hall to The Land of Spices.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Aims

- To provide the students with a greater understanding of both the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries as distinct historical periods

- To foster a critical approach to literature which takes into account the cultural and historical context of specific books

Objectives

After attending the course, the student will be able to:

- distinguish the notions of:

a) realism, modernism, symbolism, formalism
b) imperialism, colonialism, nationalism, feminism, utilitarianism

- identify a number of elements with a cultural and historical significance, in any given novel of the period

COURSE OUTLINE/SYLLABUS

Session one: Introduction
This session will be an introduction to the issues in the course. Both tutors will facilitate an introduction to some key concepts, and a discussion on our preconceptions about the periods covered and the texts we are about to consider.

Session two: Jane Eyre
This session will concentrate on the domestic novel Jane Eyre, looking at its formal characteristics, as well as some of the ideas expressed or suggested in the novel. Key word: equality.

Session three: Hard Times
This session will concentrate on the novel Hard Times considering its style and its plot, and elucidating if the text may reflect or promote certain anxieties about modernity. Key word: industrialisation.

Session four: King Solomon’s Mines
This session will concentrate on the adventure novel King Solomon’s Mines, looking at some of its formal aspects, as well as how it is implicitly informed by colonial ideology. Key word: imperialism

Session five: The Aspern Papers
This session will concentrate on the short novel The Aspern Papers. We will discuss its departure from tradition in terms of plot, point-of-view, and sentence construction, as well as a new interest in sexuality. Key word: non-normative.

Session six: The Importance of Being Earnest
This session will concentrate on the play The Importance of Being Earnest [in fact, on a film-version of it], looking at the particular demands and possibilities of the dramatic form, and how Wilde addressed and expanded them to critique Victorian England. Key word: national identity.

Session seven: The Fall of the House of Usher
This session will concentrate on the film The Fall of the House of Usher, and on how a story can be told in a realist or a non-realistic way. We will discuss the modernist interest on style for its own sake. We will look at the contrast between this film and the original tale it is based on, by Edgar Allan Poe. Key word: formalism.

Session eight: The Waves
This session will concentrate on the novel The Waves, to investigate how its formal radicalism may or may not be a response to a new interest in psychology among Woolf and her contemporaries. Key word: psychology.

Session nine: The Land of Spices
This session will concentrate on the novel The Land of Spices, and how its many strands are brought together by the author. We will discuss contemporary debates about the need of politically committed authors to write in a plain, populist way. Key words: politics and writing.

Session ten: Conclusion
This session will again be facilitated by both tutors, and it will bring together the various strands in the course. We will focus on attempting to distinguish between methods and ideas which were ground-breaking, and those who constituted a ‘refinement’ of previous achievements. We will delineate how some key social, cultural, and political transformations were reflected in fiction, and how certain meanings shifted in time.

TEACHING METHODOLOGIES
Close reading of texts: students will be asked to read the selected texts closely, after been given a guideline of things to look out for, both in terms of style and in terms of ideas and attitudes.
Exposition of concepts: the main concepts will be explained in the introductory session, and their ramifications will be discussed at each subsequent session.
Group discussion: the tutors will facilitate open discussions among the students, so that a collaborative effort will promote a deeper understanding of the issues at hand.
Watching films: in order to minimize the student work-load, two of the sessions will consider films, which will also assist in broadening our understanding of the intersections between film and narrative.

READING TEXTS
· Jane Eyre (1847), by Charlotte Brontë -any edition.
· Hard Times (1853), by Charles Dickens -any edition.
· King Solomon’s Mines (1885), by H. Rider Haggard -any edition.
· The Aspern Papers [a novella] (1888), by Henry James -any edition.
· The Importance of Being Ernest (1895), by Oscar Wilde [a film version will be shown to the students]
· The Fall of the House of Usher (1928), Dirs. James Sibley Watson and Melville Webber, USA, B&W, silent, 28 min [the film will be shown to the students].
· The Waves (1931), by Virginia Woolf –any edition.
· The Land of Spices (1942), by Kate O’Brien -any edition.

TEACHING TEAM

Shannon Byrne. MA (Education), MA (English), MA (History).
Sessions one, two, three, four, six, ten.
Aintzane L. Mentxaka. MA (English), PhD (English)
Sessions one, five, seven, eight, nine, ten.