Joyce and Beckett and the Irish Voice

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This course will deal with the challenge of reading Joyce and Beckett in a way that gives full relish to the various voices that permeate their works. These European Modernist works are suffused with an Irish sensibility which is often either ignored or misunderstood. Joyce's four great prose masterpieces will be considered with particular emphasis on Dubliners and Ulysses. Beckett's prose will be looked at in some depth with particular emphasis on the four stories or Nouvelles and the three novels Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnamable. The strong sense of irony and black humor with which these works are laced will be examined. The aim of the course is to leave the student with a fresh way of reading and, more particularly, hearing Joyce and Beckett leading to a fuller enjoyment of the work.