Spring 2018: Celtic Studies R1B, Section 1

Reading & Composition: Irish Drama and Greek Drama:
Tragedy, Comedy, Education, Language: Is Language Ever Free?

4 units
2030 VLSB
MWF 1-2
Thomas Walsh

The primary focus of this course is on the development of your writing. Since R1B is an intensive college writing course, issues of style are presented at an advanced level. Further, students are to receive attention to their writing through detailed comments on their essays and through discussion in class and during office hours. Our style sheet is the book by Diane Hacker, where the MLA style format is explained in detail.

Your writing for this course will analyze and interpret significant dramatic texts. These texts are listed under “Required Reading and Style Sheet.” It is important that you use the editions ordered for the course or handed out in class. Other editions (whether electronic or in print) should not be used. Please note that this is the case.

These texts work together in the following ways: a.) The development of Irish and Greek drama (each within a single century) presents parallel literary features that attract intellectually engaged minds. Some subjects include defiance of authoritarian order (Sophocles, Heaney); language and culture (Friel, Sophocles); gender (Sophocles, Synge); social upheaval (Friel, Sophocles). b.) Issues of language, speech, freedom, lying, etc. are front and center in both Greek and Irish traditions. Drama is an inherently political genre, one which we will explore from the perspective of comparative literature

There will be 4-5 short papers, with drafts, and a final research project to introduce you to the UCB library resources.

Required Reading and Style Sheet:
[It is important that you use the editions ordered for the course or handed out in class. Other editions (whether electronic or in print) should not be used. Please note that this is the case.]
Diane Hacker and Nancy Sommers. A Pocket Style Manual. 7th ed. Bedford/St. Martins. ISBN-10: 0-312-542542. (Either the 6th or 8th edition is acceptable.)
John P. Harrington, ed. Modern Irish Drama (Norton Critical Editions). 2nd ed. New York and London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2008. ISBN-978-0-393-93243-0.
Seamus Heaney. The Burial at Thebes: A Version of Sophocles’ Antigone. New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2004. ISBN-10: 0-374-11721-7.
—–. The Cure at Troy: A Version of Sophocles’ Philoctetes. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1991. ISBN 0-374-52289-8.
Aristophanes, 3. Slavitt, David, and Palmer Bovie (eds). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999.  ISBN-10: 0812235010;  ISBN-13: 978-0812235012
Sophocles: Electra, Antigone, Philoctetes.  Trans. Kenneth McLeish. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979.
Euthydemus. Plato. Trans. G. A. McBrayer, Nichols, M. P. Newburyport, MA: Focus Publishing (R. Pollins Company)

Prerequisite: Successful completion of the “A” portion of the Reading & Composition requirement or its equivalent. Students may not enroll in nor attend R1B/R5B courses without completing this prerequisite.