BBN-ANG-215
English Literature from 1890 until the 1960s (Az angol irodalom 1890-től az 1960-as évekig) in autumn 2014
Farkas Ákos/Gellért Marcell/Kenyeres János/Remport Eglantina, Thu 13:00–14:00, D ép. nagyelőadó, host: DES (R338)
2-credit lecture, 15 h/term; weak prereq: BBN-FLI-101
description & set texts

COURSE OBJECTIVES

This is a survey course designed to introduce, in lecture format, the history of English literature written on the British Isles from the 1890s to the 1960s, highlighting the major periods, genres, oeuvres and individual works of the era.

COURSE CONTENT

Aesthetic and poetic concerns of the late Victorian and turn-of-the-century decades and their manifestation in the various genres (Pater, Wilde, James); modernist trends in the novel (Conrad, Joyce, Woolf); modernism and its antecedents in poetry (Hardy, Yeats, Eliot); prose fiction and modernity at mid-century (Huxley, Orwell); satire, metaphysics, and moral philosophy in the post World War II novel (Murdoch, Golding); dramatic revival on the British Isles and the theatre of the absurd (Synge, Beckett, Pinter); the poetry of the Auden-generation and Dylan Thomas; representatives of post WWII poetry (Larkin).

WEEKLY SYLLABUS

  1. (Sep 11) Modernism in English literature (Á. Farkas)
  2. (Sep 18) The novel at the turn of the century 1 (J. Kenyeres)
  3. (Sep 25) The novel at the turn of the century 2 (J. Kenyeres)
  4. (Oct 02) The Celtic Revival and English-language literature (E. Remport)
  5. (Oct 09) Some major modernist poets (J. Kenyeres)
  6. (Oct 16) Poetry before and after World War II (J. Kenyeres)
  7. (Oct 23) National holiday—no lectures
  8. (Oct 30) Autumn holiday—no lectures
  9. (Nov 06) Drama from Shaw to the theatre of the absurd 1 (M. Gellért)
  10. (Nov 13) Drama from Shaw to the Theatre of the Absurd 2 (M: Gellért)
  11. (Nov 20) The modernist novel from Joyce through Woolf 1 (E. Remport
  12. (Nov 27) Some major 20th c. women writers (E. Remport)
  13. (Dec 04) The modernist novel from Joyce through Woolf 2 (Á. Farkas)
  14. (Dec 11) Utopian fiction in the 20th c. (Á. Farkas)

REQUIRED READING

FICTION

H. JAMES, The Turn of the Screw (1898)

J. CONRAD, Heart of Darkness (1899/1902)

J. JOYCE, "The Dead", "Araby" and "Eveline" or "After the Race" (both the first and the second; one of the last two: 3 altogether) from Dubliners (1914)

E. M. FORSTER, Howards End (1910) or D. H. LAWRENCE, The Rainbow (1915)

V. WOOLF, Mrs Dalloway (1925)

A. HUXLEY, Brave New World (1932)

G. ORWELL, Nineteen Eighty-four (1949) (one of the previous two dystopias)

M. SPARK, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961)

D. LESSING, The Grass Is Singing (1962)

DRAMA

J. M. SYNGE, The Playboy of the Western World(1907)

S. BECKETT, Waiting for Godot(1952/1954)/

H. PINTER, The Caretaker (1959)

POETRY

THOMAS HARDY (1840-1928) “A Broken Appointment”, “The Darkling Thrush”, “In Tenebris I (Wintertime nights)”, “Afterwards”

WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS (1865-1939) “The Lake Isle of Innisfree”, “The Second Coming”, “Sailing to Byzantium”, “Leda and the Swan”, “The Circus Animals’ Desertion”

T. S ELIOT (1888-1965) “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, “Preludes”, “Ash-Wednesday”

W. H. AUDEN (1907-1973) “As I Walked Out One Evening”, “In Praise of Limestone”, “The Shield of Achilles”

DYLAN THOMAS (1914-1953) “And Death Shall Have No Dominion”, “A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London”, “Fern Hill”, “Do Not Go gentle into That Good Night

PHILIP LARKIN (1922-1985) “Church Going”, “The Whitsun Weddings”, “High Windows”, “Sad Steps”

RECOMMENDED PRIMARY SOURCES

H. JAMES, The Portrait of a Lady(1881)

J. JOYCE, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)

W. GOLDING, Lord of the Flies (1954)

I. MURDOCH, Under the Net (1954)

G. B. SHAW. Saint Joan (1921-1923)

RECOMMENDED SECONDARY SOURCES

General

Daiches, David. A Critical History of English Literature. Vol. 2. London: Mandarin, 1994.

Coot, Stephen.The Penguin Short History of English LiteratureHaemondsworth: Penguin, 1993.

Dodsworth, Martin, ed. The Penguin History of Literature. Vol. 7. The Twentieth Century. London: Penguin, 1990.

Sanders, Andrew. The Short Oxford History of English Literature. New York : Oxford University Press, 1994.

Selected websites:

[For names, titles and concepts:] ">">">">">">">">">">">">">">">">">">">">">http://www.online-literature.com

[For primary texts:] http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/, http://www.bartleby.com/

Novel

Bényei Tamás. Az ártatlan ország: Az angol regény 1945 után. Debrecen: Kossuth Egyetemi Kiadó, 2003.

Bradbury, Malcolm. The Modern British Novel. London: Secker & Warburg, 1993.

Hewitt, Douglas. English Fiction of the Early Modern Period, 1890-1940. London: Longman, 1988.

MacKay, Marina and Lyndsey Stonebridge, eds. British Fiction After Modernism: The Novel at Mid-Century. Houndmills: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2007.

Stevenson, Randall. Modernist Fiction: An Introduction. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992.

Drama

Brustein, Robert. The Theatre of Revolt: An Approach to the Modern Drama. London: Methuen, 1965.

Dietrich, Richard F. British Drama, 1890-1950: A Critical History. Boston: Twayne, 1989.

Esslin, Martin. The Theatre of the Absurd. London : Methuen, 2001.

Fischer-Lichte, E.: A dráma története. Jelenkor: Pécs, 2001.

Gascoigne, Bamber, Twentieth Century Drama. London, Hutchinson: 1962.

Innes, Christopher. Modern British Drama, 1890-1990. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1992.

–-. Modern British Drama: The Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2002.

Poetry

Ellmann, Richard and O’Clair, Robert, eds.: The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry. New York, London: W. W. Norton & Company, 1988

Eliot, T. S.: Tradition and the Individual Talent. In: Kermode, Frank, ed.: Selected Prose of T. S. Eliot. London: Faber & Faber, 1975, pp 37-44

Ford, Boris, ed.: The Pelican Guide to English Literature. Vol. 7. From James to Eliot. London: Penguin Books Ltd., 1996, pp 150-165, 166-179, 230-254, 443-461, 462-478

Ford, Boris, ed.: The Pelican Guide to English Literature. Vol. 8. The Present. London: Penguin Books Ltd., 1990, pp 209-223, 281-293, 294-313

Dodsworth, Martin, ed.: The Penguin History of Literature. Vol. 7. The Twentieth Century. London: Penguin Books Ltd., 1990, pp 33-64, 109-144, 195-224, 267-314, 345-374

WEBSITES

www.poemhunter.com

www.poets.org

www.online-literature.com

requirements & assessment
Close familiarity with all required reading, lecture material and secondary sources. Written end-of-term exam (írásbeli kollokvium; quiz and essay).