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This course will be dedicated to the 1910s and 1920s, which produced a new movement in the various arts (literature, painting, music, dance) that was international in scope and that is still influential today. This period saw a number of fundamental changes in the political, social and cultural fields. It covers World War I and its aftermath; it was a time when traditional values were questioned, when gender relations were being renegotiated and concepts of femininity and masculinity redefined, when new findings in psychology fostered a marked interest in the workings of the individual consciousness, and when the nature of reality itself was under severe scrutiny. And it was a time marked by considerable literary innovations. Virginia Woolf, one of the prime representatives of Modernism, claimed that a new vision of life required new forms of literary expression. We will explore these issues by analysing a variety of sources, e.g. essays, the novels mentioned below, short fiction by Katherine Mansfield, James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence and others, as well as poetry by T.S. Eliot.
In Part II of the module, which can only be attended in tandem with Part I, we will enlarge on some of the aspects and material from Part I and, in addition, participants will have the opportunity to develop research questions and practise the skills necessary for the writing of their term papers.
Please buy and read the following texts:
Dorothy Richardson, Pointed Roofs (available on Project Gutenberg)
Rebecca West, The Return of the Soldier
Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse
Katherine Mansfield, Selected Stories (Oxford World’s Classics)
Further material will be made available at the beginning of the semester. |
