Second year English

Eoin MurMur

Hey there,

I'm about to start in to second year English and was wondering if I could get some words of wisdom as regards to choosing lecture modules.

I've already decided to do Old English Poetry as my first option but for my second lecture course I'm torn between 18th century studies and Genre studies. Here's a description of each:

ENG202 Eighteenth Century Studies
Section 1: Jonathan Swift and his Circle

This section will examine the career of the Anglo-Irish poet and satirist, Jonathan Swift. It will examine Swift's poetry and prose in order to focus on the satirical mode, questions of identity and patriotism, the representation of women, and the social contexts for writing in early eighteenth-century Dublin. Texts will include: Gulliver's Travels, A Modest Proposal, The Drapier's Letters, selected poetry by Swift and his Dublin circle.

Section 2: From Satire to Sensibility

This section will examine the ’rise of the novel’ and the literature of feeling in the eighteenth century. It will discuss the transformation of satire by eighteenth-century sentimental literature, and the ways in which early novels represent individual identity, gender, morality, and sexuality. Texts will include The Rape of the Lock, Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko, Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders, selections from Richardson’s Pamela, Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey.

Lecturers: Dr. Rebecca Anne Barr and Dr. Marie-Louise Coolahan

ENG203 Genre Studies
Section 1: Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Lyric

This course will focus on a number of great lyric poems written between 1580 and 1700, with an emphasis on the sonnet. Poems by Shakespeare, Donne, Herbert, Milton, and Marvell will be included.

Section 2: Realism and Naturalism in Nineteenth-Century Fiction

This section will examine the genre of social realist and naturalist fiction in the nineteenth century, and consider how writers chose to represent a rapidly changing world and what kind of new realities they perceived. We will analyse realist narrative strategies such as narrative voice and point of view; thematic contexts such as art, science and evolution, sociology, and psychology; the politics of texts in relation to gender and class issues.

Lecturers: Prof. Adrian Frazier and Prof. Richard Pearson

They both strike me as interesting so I was just wondering if anyone here could give me some insight into the lecturers (I've already had Rebecca Barr in first year and thought she was excellent) or different aspects of the modules for those who may have done them before.

Thanks!

tbahh

ENG202 is a new course (but looks like it has snippets from the previous year's course such as Pamela (I didn't do this course because I found Pamela, as a character, quite boring and loves self-pity)

With the second course, it was the one I did the worst in. The feedback (on Turnitin) was perhaps harsher from whoever corrected it but is good as they point out where you went wrong. (I answered both questions on novel part. My friend did really well by doing both poetry question) . I found overall the essay questions were very limited and not much room to answer on. If you really like poetry, then you'll love the poetry module (although by the end, i think only 20 people were showing up)

The novel/short story part of the course is okay as well. I really enjoyed Tess and Therese Raquin but Silas Marner is really dull (nothing happens really during it and it's ending was far too nice). P and J was okay (short which is good).

Lecturers were okay (sort of a clash between over-enthusiasm and under-enthusiasm which you will see if you go to classes) . If ever had a question, I got a reply quickly.

Good Luck with choices

Eoin MurMur

tbahh wrote: »

ENG202 is a new course (but looks like it has snippets from the previous year's course such as Pamela (I didn't do this course because I found Pamela, as a character, quite boring and loves self-pity)

With the second course, it was the one I did the worst in. The feedback (on Turnitin) was perhaps harsher from whoever corrected it but is good as they point out where you went wrong. (I answered both questions on novel part. My friend did really well by doing both poetry question) . I found overall the essay questions were very limited and not much room to answer on. If you really like poetry, then you'll love the poetry module (although by the end, i think only 20 people were showing up)

The novel/short story part of the course is okay as well. I really enjoyed Tess and Therese Raquin but Silas Marner is really dull (nothing happens really during it and it's ending was far too nice). P and J was okay (short which is good).

Lecturers were okay (sort of a clash between over-enthusiasm and under-enthusiasm which you will see if you go classes) . If ever had a question, I got a reply quickly.

Good Luck with choices

Thanks! I'll bear all that in mind