LIT 3043 Spring 2022 Pickens

Any attempt to survey the entirety of modern drama as a whole is bound to come up woefully short. This is largely true of attempting to take the long view of any one type of media over the broadly one hundred plus years that we categorize as “modern.” This course chooses to introduce students to the world of modern drama via a specific area within that field: modern Irish drama. Of the reasons for this perhaps the most important is that Irish drama has maintained a level of cultural significance both inside and outside of the small island while the cultural dominance of drama in most western countries has waned over the years. This course will therefore examine several Irish dramatists starting with the Irish literary revival of the late 1800s through to the present day. This course will examine authors such as Lady Gregory, Yeats, O’Casey, O’Neill, Behan, Beckett, and more. In looking at these authors and their texts in combination with secondary materials, students will chart the shifts in the dramatic landscape that have occurred since the beginnings of modern drama with attention to politics, poetics, language, the Avant Garde, sexuality, violence, and national identity.