ENGL 543

Fall 2015 All Classes

All Classes

Seminar Mod British Lit

SHOW FINAL EXAM SCHEDULE

Credit: 4 hours.

May be repeated if topics vary. Prerequisite: One college course devoted entirely to an aspect of modern British studies or consent of instructor.

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ENGL 543 class schedule data for fall 2015
	CRN	Type	Section	Time	Day	Location	Instructor	Section Details
	30195	Lecture-Discussion	E	1:00PM -2:50PM	M	123 English Building	Mahaffey, V	Part of Term: 1 Date Range: 08/24/15-12/09/15 Section Title: Joyce & Beckett Section Info: Topic Section E: Joyce and Beckett Joyce was an important influence on Beckett. Beckett began to write?essays, fiction, and poetry?after meeting Joyce at the age of 22 in Paris. Beckett proposed writing a dissertation on Joyce and Proust at the Ecole Normale (it wasn?t approved). One of Beckett?s first published essays was ?Dante. . . Bruno. Vico. . Joyce,? the inaugural piece in in Our Exagmination Round his Factification for the Incamination of Work in Progress (1929). Lucia?s infatuation with Beckett was well known, along with the cooling between Joyce and Beckett that occurred when Beckett indicated that he had no romantic interest in her. Beckett (with Alfred P�ron) made the first effort at translating the ?Anna Livia Plurabelle? section into French, and Beckett was part of the small coterie of supporters and helpers that Joyce depended on as he was writing Finnegans Wake. There are other connections as well: their shared Irishness combined with Francophone sensibilities, the zest with which they both read Dante in Italian, their interest in the relation between language and gesture, their common attachment to peculiar language, enlivened by what is almost an obsession with etymology. The main question that drives this course is whether or not it is time to revise the usual view of how Joyce and Beckett differ: that Joyce tried to approach omniscience, whereas Beckett?in reaction?developed a comedy and an ethos based on impotence. Is it possible that the connections between them are closer than this version of the story allows? We will read Joyce?s Dubliners followed by Beckett?s More Pricks than Kicks. Then we will read Joyce?s Ulysses and the ?Anna Livia Plurabelle? section of Finnegans Wake, followed by Beckett?s essay for Our Exagmination, a sampling of his early writing (including Murphy, Watt, and Mercier and Camier). We will read the first volume of the trilogy (Molloy), and then spend the remaining time on the plays: Waiting for Godot, Endgame, Krapp?s Last Tape, Not I, and as many others as we can fit into the remaining time. Requirements include at least one written and oral report and the equivalent of 15-20 pages of written work (either in the form of a longer seminar paper or in the form of three shorter essays on individual works). Restriction(s): Restricted to Graduate - Urbana-Champaign.