Nineteenth-Century Irish Literature

Spring 2022

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Spring 2022 • ENGL 7633 \ Section AA • CRN 15601
Seminar in Nineteenth Century Irish Literature
Tuesdays • 5:00 pm (SHARP) – 7:45 pm \ College of Education Building • Room 1131 

 
 

Week A (Jan. 11)

• Overview of Course
• Overview of Nineteenth-Century Irish History

Weeks B (Jan. 18) • C (Jan. 25) • D (Feb. 1) • E (Feb. 8)

Sydney Owenson (Lady Morgan) \ 1781-1859 • The Wild Irish Girl: A National Tale \ 1806

• Epistolary novel in national-tale genre \ Originally published as two volumes
• WHAT TO READ: Weeks B, C, D, E
• Consume as flip book via archive.org: We’re reading both volumes in the single edition published in 1879 by P.J. Kenedy (Excelsior Catholic Publishing House), New York

Week F (Feb. 15)

Thomas Moore \ 1779-1852 • Lyrics from Irish Melodies \ 1808-1834

• Moore published 10 volumes (“numbers”), plus a supplement \ Original lyrics, set to traditional Irish tunes
• WHAT TO READ: Week F
• Consume as flip book via archive.org: We’re reading from a book-length selection titled Irish Melodies, published in 1823 by J. Power, London

Week G (Feb. 22)

Maria Edgeworth \ 1768-1849 • Castle Rackrent: An Hibernian Tale \ 1800

• Big House genre of prose fiction \ Novella in two parts, narrated by subaltern (native-servant) character, Thady Quirk
• WHAT TO READ: Week G
• Consume as flip book via archive.org: We’re reading from an edition published in 1910 by Macmillan, London

Weeks H (Mar. 1) • I (Mar. 8) • J (Mar. 22) • K (Mar. 29)

William Carleton \ 1794-1869 • The Black Prophet: A Tale of Irish Famine \ 1846

• Novel composed during Great Hunger (potato famine) but based on Carleton’s experiences of famines between 1817 and 1822 \ Engages with Irish physician Dr. Dominic Corrigan’s 1846 pamphlet on relationship between famine and fever
• WHAT TO READ: Weeks H, I, J, K
• Consume as flip book via archive.org: We’re reading from an edition published in 1899 by Lawrence & Bullen, London, with illustrations by Jack Butler Yeats (brother of the poet-dramatist William Butler Yeats)

Week L (Apr. 5)

Thomas Davis \ 1814-1845 • Selected Prose and Poetry (mainly early 1840s)

• Nationalist Polemics: Essays and Poems \ Although only 31 at his death, Davis established himself as the Young Ireland movement’s key ideologue \ He cofounded The Nation, perhaps the most influential propagandistic newspaper in nineteenth-century Ireland
• WHAT TO READ: Week L
• Consume as flip book via archive.org: We’re reading from a work titled Thomas Davis: Selections from His Prose and Poetry, introduced by Thomas W. Rolleston and published (in the Every Irishman’s Library series) in 1914 by T. Fisher Unwin, London

Weeks M (Apr. 12) • N (Apr. 19) • O (Apr. 26)

Charles J. Kickham \ 1828-1882 • Knocknagow; or, The Homes of Tipperary (1873)

• Early Land War Novel • From the late 1870s to around the 1930s, Knocknagow was Ireland’s best-selling novel
• WHAT TO READ WHEN: Weeks M, N, O
• Consume as a flip book via archive.org: We’re reading the thirteenth edition, published in 1887 by Duffy, Dublin