Interdisciplinary Sem:

SAME AS RELST-UA 181

Course Title: Literature as History: Ireland 1880-1940 Course Description: Using the lens of Ireland’s great writers, students will examine key developments during a time of great transformation in Irish history. The course begins with the rise to political prominence of Charles Stewart Parnell, whose fall from grace in 1890 was an enduring source of fascination. Then, fin-de-siecle cultural politics, the rise of Sinn Féin, the 1916 Easter Rising, the War of Independence, the Civil War, and developments in independent Ireland during the 1920s and 1930s provided important context and content for the works of W.B. Yeats, James Joyce, John Millington Synge, and Seán O’Casey. Students will reflect on the value of literature as an historical source, and on its limitations.