Celtic Modernisms

(7.5 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

How exclusive a club is modernism? Did Scottish and Irish cultural nationalism inform and trouble 'modernist' writing? And what role did writers from the 'Celtic fringe' of the British archipelago play in reinvigorating and reconfiguring the literary canon in the period between 1914 and 1939? By analysing a diverse range of texts from Scottish, Irish and (Anglo-)Welsh writers - from formal as well as socio-political perspectives - we will explore alternative views of the Modernist period: in particular we will examine the relationship between the Irish Literary Revival and the Scottish Renaissance, and between the Celtic periphery and the metropolitan centre, and also the ways the writers studied turned the English language, and its hierarchies and traditions, back on itself.