International Education Office: Early Start Semester in Literatures in Ireland
Duration: Late August - Mid-December
What is the Early Start Semester in Literatures in Ireland?
EN2004 Early Start Semester in Literatures in Ireland
The Early Start Semester in Literatures in Ireland provides the visiting student with an introduction to a wide range of Irish writing.
What will I be Studying?
The topics taught in this course include Irish poetry, fiction and film.
Check out: Joyce Followers - Early Start at University College Cork
Twentieth-Century Irish Fiction
This section of the course will look at James Joyce’s novel Ulysses. Although Ulysses is one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, students are sometimes afraid to read it because of its reputed difficulty. This class will make Joyce’s innovative and compelling work accessible and enjoyable. We will also read Elizabeth Bowen’s The Last September, a very stylish novel that examines the Anglo-Irish way of life in 1920s Ireland.
Twentieth Century Irish Poetry
In this section we will read the poetry of William Butler Yeats. Beginning with his early work in the Irish Literary Revival we will range through Yeats’ many reinventions of himself up until his death in 1929.
Irish Film
This section offers an intensive introductory course to Irish cinema and will examine films from the early days of film-making in Ireland to more recent examples from directors such as Neil Jordan, Pat Murphy and Thaddeus O’Sullivan. These films’ relationship to Irish society and culture, as well as issues such as the representation of gender, national identity and financing, will be examined.
Field Trips
Field trips are designed to complement the central texts on the course and as an introduction to the Irish landscape which plays such a major role in Irish literature. Day trips include a visit to the ruins of Bowen’s Court in north Cork, the setting of Elizabeth Bowen’s novel The Last September. We will also visit Dublin for some days to walk in the footsteps of Leopold Bloom, and recreate the events of Joyce’s Ulysses almost one hundred years after Joyce imagined them. This visit to the city where Joyce set Ulysses will help to bring the setting and the novel to life. A visit to the Abbey Theatre, which W. B. Yeats helped found, and the National Gallery, will also form part of this trip.
Entry Requirements
Further Information
For further information contact the International Education Office
Email: isoffice@ucc.ie
