Department of English

The dramatic social and political events experienced in Britain during the last century—two world wars, the loss of empire, the enfranchisement of women, and the increasing diversification of its population—will form the backdrop to this introductory survey of twentieth-century British and Irish literature. We will read and discuss poems, plays, and fiction, with particular attention to the ways in which historical and personal change are communicated through language and form. We are likely to begin with some key texts from the modernist period, including works by Ford Madox Ford, James Joyce, T. S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf, and Samuel Beckett, and then move on to more recent works by authors such as Hanif Kureishi, Tom Stoppard, Jeanette Winterson, and Ian McEwan. Requirements include lively participation, several short response papers (2-3 pp), one longer essay (7-10 pp), and an in-class final exam.