Module ENGL3601: Seamus Heaney

Department: English Studies

ENGL3601: Seamus Heaney

Prerequisites

• Any Single or Joint Honours finalist student wishing to take this Special Topic module must have satisfactorily completed the required number of core modules. Combined Honours and Outside Honours students must have satisfactorily completed either two Level 1 core introductory modules, or at least one Level 1 core module and one further lecture based module in English at Level 2.

Corequisites

• None.

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None

Aims

• To provide an advanced study of the writings of a single author: the Nobel Prize winning poet, Seamus Heaney (1939-2013).
• To explore the development of Heaney’s work, in both formal and thematic terms, from Death of a Naturalist (1966) to Human Chain (2010).
• To consider Heaney’s work in the context of modern Irish literature, and especially in relation to the achievements of James Joyce, W.B. Yeats, and Patrick Kavanagh, as well as contemporaries such as Derek Mahon, Michael Longley, and Paul Muldoon.
• To understand the ways in which Heaney responds as a writer to the impact of political violence in Northern Ireland.
• To evaluate the extensive critical response to Heaney’s work since the 1960s.
• To assess Heaney’s achievements as a writer, paying close attention to his formal and generic innovations (especially with the elegy), as well as to his plays, translations, and prose writings.

Content

• The module will concentrate on the two volumes, Selected Poems 1966-1987 (Faber 1990) and New Selected Poems 1988-2013 (Faber 2014).
• Themes of rural life and labour, political violence, peace and reconciliation, spirituality, and human transience will be studied in relation to the formal and linguistic achievements of the poetry.
• The module will also include discussion of Heaney’s work as a translator, including his celebrated translation of Beowulf (1999), and his work for theatre, such as The Cure at Troy (1990).
• Careful attention, appropriate to Level 3 study, will be given to critical debates surrounding Heaney’s work, including books and essays by Neil Corcoran, Michael Parker, Bernard O’Donoghue, Edna Longley, and others.
• Contextual material, both biographical and historical, will be introduced where appropriate.
• The module will make extensive use of rare archival material, including facsimiles of Heaney’s notebooks, as a way of encouraging independent research among students taking the module.
• The module will also draw on valuable audio-visual materials, including voice recordings, radio broadcasts, interviews, and TV footage.

Learning Outcomes

• Students taking this module will acquire an extensive knowledge of the poetry and prose written by Seamus Heaney between 1966 and 2010.
• Students are expected to acquire a critical awareness and understanding of the poet’s handling of both English and Irish literary forms and conventions.
• Students are expected to show an advanced knowledge of critical debates about poetry and politics, including Heaney’s own theories about the role and function of lyric poetry in a time of political violence.
• Students are expected to demonstrate an appropriate knowledge of theories of poetry and its relationships with region and nation.
• Students are expected to show a good working knowledge of relevant and precise critical terminology.
• Students should acquire a relevant knowledge of the linguistic, literary, cultural and socio-historical contexts in which contemporary Northern Irish poetry is written and read.
• Students should be able to show a keen awareness of the range and variety of approaches to literary study.

• critical skills in the close reading and analysis of texts
• an ability to demonstrate knowledge of a range of texts and critical approaches
• informed awareness of formal and aesthetic dimensions of literature and ability to offer cogent analysis of their workings in specific texts
• sensitivity to generic conventions and to the shaping effects on communication of historical circumstances, and to the affective power of language
• an ability to articulate and substantiate an imaginative response to literature
• an ability to articulate knowledge and understanding of concepts and theories relating to literary studies
• skills of effective communication and argument
• awareness of conventions of scholarly presentation, and bibliographic skills including accurate citation of sources and consistent use of scholarly conventions of presentation
• command of a broad range of vocabulary and an appropriate critical terminology
• awareness of literature as a medium through which values are affirmed and debated
• an appreciation of the power of imagination in literary creation.

• Students studying this module will develop:
• a capacity to analyse complex texts critically and sensitively
• an ability to acquire complex information of diverse kinds in a structured and systematic way involving the use of distinctive interpretative skills derived from the subject
• skills of effective communication and argument
• competence in the planning and execution of narrative prose compositions
• a capacity for independent thought and judgement, and ability to assess the critical ideas of others
• skills in critical reasoning
• an ability to handle information and argument in a critical manner
• information-technology skills such as word-processing and electronic data access information
• organisation and time-management skills

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• Seminars: encourage peer-group discussion, enable students to develop critical skills in the close reading and analysis of texts, and skills of effective communication and presentation; promote awareness of diversity of interpretation and methodology.
• Consultation session: encourages students to reflect critically and independently on their work.
• Independent but directed reading/writing in preparation for seminars provides opportunity for students to enrich subject-specific knowledge and enhances their ability to develop appropriate subject-specific skills.
• Typically, directed learning may include assigning student(s) an issue, theme or topic that can be independently or collectively explored within a framework and/or with additional materials provided by the tutor. This may function as preparatory work for presenting their ideas or findings (sometimes electronically) to their peers and tutor in the context of a seminar.
• Coursework: tests the student's ability to argue, respond and interpret, and to demonstrate subject-specific knowledge and skills such as appreciation of the power of imagination in literary creation and the close reading and analysis of texts; they also test the ability to present word-processed work, observing scholarly conventions of submission.
• Feedback: The written feedback that is provided after the first assessed essay allows students to reflect on examiners' comments, giving students the opportunity to improve their work for the second essay.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

Before the first assessed essay, students will have an individual consultation session in which they will receive feedback on their essay plan. Students may also, if they wish, discuss their ideas for the second essay at this meeting.

■ Attendance at all activities marked with this symbol will be monitored. Students who fail to attend these activities, or to complete the summative or formative assessment specified above, will be subject to the procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University