Irish writing
(M.Phil./P.Grad. Dip.)

Course Code TRT20

Students intending to apply for this course should submit online at
http://www.tcd.ie/courses/postgraduate/az/course.php?id=DPTEN-IWRI-1F09

Course Directors:

Prof Nicholas Grene: (Administrative Director: on leave Michaelmas Term 2012)
Room 4007 Arts Building ngrene@tcd.ie

Prof Aileen Douglas: (Administrative Director Mihaelmas Term 2012)
Room 4002 Arts Building adouglas@tcd.ie

Prof Eve Patten
Room 4023 Arts Building epatten@tcd.ie

Duration:

Closing Date:

Irish Writing in English since the sixteenth century has involved a remarkable flowering of creativity in a wide variety of genres. Trinity College has often been to the fore in this and numbers such major figures as Jonathan Swift and Samuel Beckett among its graduates. The well-known contemporary writers William Trevor, Derek Mahon, Michael Longley, Eavan Boland, Sebastian Barry and Anne Enright continue a tradition that has seen many of the college's graduates contribute to Ireland's reputation as a country in which excellent writing is produced and celebrated.

The course in Irish Writing offers graduates in English or related disciplines (e.g. history, art history, Irish Studies, a modern language) the opportunity to study the broad range of Irish Writing in English. A central element of the course requires students to concentrate on four major literary figures: Jonathan Swift, W.B.Yeats, James Joyce and Samuel Beckett. This course is accompanied by a further required course which offers students a series of perspectives on Irish Writing, from the sixteenth century to the present day. There is also a course on Research Methods which trains students in literary scholarship and its presentation. These elements are complemented by a series of option courses from which students are invited to select two in a given year, one in each semester.

The course is designed to be complete in itself but can serve as preparation for those wishing to proceed to further research in the field. Assessment is by presented essays and a dissertation.

Applicants should have a good honours degree (at least an upper second, GPA of at least 3.3). Some previous knowledge of Irish Writing is also desirable. Admission to the course is competitive due to a restricted quota.

The course comprises five modules:

Single Author Course
This course, taught in a weekly two-hour seminar, covers the work of four major individual authors from the Irish literary tradition. In Michaelmas term we study Swift and Yeats, and in Hilary term, Joyce and Beckett.

Perspectives in Irish Writing
This course introduces students to the socio/cultural contexts in which Irish writing in English developed from the late seventeeth century through to the twenty-first century. It investigates key terms that students will encounter in the critical literature on Irish writing and culture: Anglo-Irish, Protestant Ascendancy, the Gaelic tradition, colonialism, the Big House, romantic and cultural nationalism, the Literary Revival. In addition to covering the significant authors of the tradition, it also addresses such issues as authorship, publishing history and reception as they bear on the emergence and development of a national literature in English and explores a number of theoretical issues.

Research Methods
This is a series of two-hour weekly seminars, taught in Michaelmas Term. The course introduces students to the research resources of the Library and provides for the development of research skills and techniques

Option courses
Students take one option course in each of the semesters, choosing from the variety of special subjects on offer each year. These special subjects include: The Poet and Poetry: Yeats, MacNeice and Heaney, Ireland on Stage, Irish Poetry 1935-2005, Irish Fiction after Joyce and Creative Writing.

In place of the special subjects offered in the second term, students may enrol for a Creative Writing Workshop (an element of the M.Phil. in Creative Writing). Entry to this workshop is restricted and based on assessment of a portfolio of the student's creative writing, which must be presented before the end of the first term.

Dissertation
A dissertation (12,000-15,000 words) is planned in consultation with a Course Director during the second (Hilary) term and is written under the guidance of a supervisor. This work is undertaken in the third term (Trinity term) and in the long vacation (April-August).

Assessment is by a combination of course papers, presented work and dissertation.

Course Administrator

Ms Lilian Foley,
Administrator's Office
Ground Floor, Oscar Wilde Centre,
Telephone: 353-1-896-2885 (mornings)
Email: lifoley@tcd.ie