ETS 314 Maymester: Wilde, Shaw, & O'Casey: Three Irish Writers

Gender, Class, & Nationalism

May 14-18 10 a.m.-noon

and continuing via email. svsternl@syr.edu

DO NOT SEND ATTACHMENTS

Instructor: S. Sternlicht Office 429HL 315 443-9480

Home 315 472 5639

English Office 443 2173

Fax 315 443 3660

Webpage: consult for links to research sources

http://web.syr.edu/~svsternl

Texts:

Oscar Wilde: The Importance of Being Earnest in Selected Plays of Oscar Wilde. Penguin USA

G. Bernard Shaw: Pygmalion. Penguin USA

Sean O'Casey: Juno and the Paycock in Three      Three Plays of Sean O'Casey: The Shadow of a      Gunman, Juno and the Paycock, and The Plough and      the Stars. Faber & Faber

Sternlicht: A Reader's Guide to Modern Irish Drama

Syracuse University Press

This course approaches three major Irish playwrights, all born in Dublin, from the point of view of class, gender, exile, and nationalism. More specifically, we will study the historical and social background that informed Dublin Irish writers born in the Victorian period but who became significant contributors to Modernism. Wilde was born wealthy and had early success on the English stage, but because he was a gay man he eventually was persecuted and driven into exile. Shaw was lower middle class and desperate to make a success of his life. He exiled himself to England. O'Casey was working-class Dublin, and it was not until he was in his forties that he had any success at all in the theater, but the Irish Revolution have him voice, although he too, in the end chose exile.. All three playwrights were sensitivity to the fact that Ireland was a colonized state. Our sample of plays perforce must be small, but our reading will be close, and our understanding deep. These playwrights spoke to the problems of their time, yet in many ways their ideas are still current.

During the first week, when we are meeting together, the lecture/discussion classes will include such topics as:

Irish and English class structure and society in      late Victorian and early modern times.

Drama Theory

Irish History

Themes in Modern Irish Drama

Authorial intention

Women in Ireland and Britain circa 1900

Wilde, Shaw, and O'Casey on Feminism

:Requirements:

Students are required to attend all five class lecture/discussions. Absence will result in grade loss.

Students will then read the three plays in this order: The Importance of Being Earnest, Pygmalion, and Juno and the Paycock, and write three essays, one on each play, discussing aspects of class, gender, and national identity in each. The essays will, when complete, be approximately 1500 words each, and will be developed through listserv/web board discussions with fellow students and the instructor. All final drafts will be completed and sent in by 1 August via email without attachments or by post. Essays submitted late will be penalized one full letter grade.

Specific Topics

Earnest

Gender Roles in The Important of Being Earnest

Class Distinctions and Stereotypes in "

Wilde's "Otherness" as an Irish Writer as Seen in "

Wilde's Depiction of Women in Victorian High Society

Gay Codes and Camp in The Importance of Being Earnest

Pygmalion

Is Professor Higgins a Misogynist? Is Shaw?

What Does Pygmalion Say about Women's Opportunities in

Edwardian Society?

Shaw's "Otherness" as a Lower Middle Class Irishman as

Seen in Pygmalion

Discuss Alfred Doolittle's Morality and Shaw's

Juno

Nationalism and Anti-Nationalism in Juno and the Paycock

Mother/Daughter Relations in " " " "

Discuss O'Casey's View of the Anglo-Irish War and the

Irish War for Independence as Expressed in Juno...

What is O'Casey's View of Men in Juno and the Paycock?

Is O'Casey a Nationalist, Feminist?