120087 AR Advanced Interdisciplinary Course (526) = Literature 1/2 (MA) British/Irish/New English Literatures (2009S)

The Easter Rising, the most important political event in Ireland before her independence, caused ambivalent emotions at the time and later. In this course, the Rising will first be considered against the background of different forms of political and cultural nationalism; of equal importance will be a consideration of the historiography of the Rising to the present time.
However, the main focus will be on the structure of the literary motifs in popular poetry and ballads, most of them anonymous. Attention will be given to six poems by W.B. Yeats, the most influential cultural nationalist of the period. This is to be followed by analyses of the motif in drama: Sean O'Casey's The Plow and the Stars, John Arden and Margaritta d'Arcy's The Non-Stop Connolly Show; D. Johnstone's fine play The Scythe and the Sunset and finally Tom Murphy's iconoclastic The Patriot Game. Narrative prose will be represented by Liam O'Flaherty's Insurrection and Iris Murdoch's novel The Red and the Green.
The biography of Patrick Pearse, the leader of the Rising, will receive special attention as well as James Stephens' fine contemporary account The Insurrection in Dublin.