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Module Specifications.

Current Academic Year 2024 - 2025

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Date posted: September 2024

Module Title Genre: The Tragedy-Comedy Complex
Module Code EL103 (ITS) / LIT1018 (Banner)
Faculty Humanities & Social Sciences School English
Module Co-ordinatorMichael Hinds
Module TeachersGearoid O'Flaherty, Kit Fryatt
NFQ level 6 Credit Rating 5
Pre-requisite Not Available
Co-requisite Not Available
Compatibles Not Available
Incompatibles Not Available
Coursework Only
Description

Starting with Aristotle’s Poetics and the literature of ancient Greece, this module will begin by exploring the creative tension between comedy and tragedy that has permeated culture. It will then move into a further exploration of genre, across literary history and national literatures.

Learning Outcomes

1. Discriminate between comedy and tragedy, applying a knowledge of Aristotleian concepts
2. Indicate when the tragic and the comic converge or get confused
3. Reflect upon the social responsiveness of genre
4. Understand the flexibility potential within genres
5. Comprehend the way in which presuppositions about genre shape reading



Workload Full-time hours per semester
Type Hours Description
Lecture21No Description
Tutorial3No Description
Independent Study101No Description
Total Workload: 125

All module information is indicative and subject to change. For further information,students are advised to refer to the University's Marks and Standards and Programme Specific Regulations at: http://www.dcu.ie/registry/examinations/index.shtml

Indicative Content and Learning Activities

Aristotle

Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes

Comic Archetypes

Tragi-Comic Confusions

Tragi-Comic Cinema

Types of Comedy

Popular Genres

Popular Genres: Gun-Plays

Popular Genres: Fantasy

Popular Genres: Gothic

Beginnings of literary criticism, Tragedy and Comedy

Oedipus Rex, Medea, Lysistrata

From Ancient Greece to the Present

Dr. Faustus, Ethan Frome , Kafka, Beckett

Oldboy, Grizzly Man, True North, Duck Soup

Satire (Swift) - Screwball - Farce

Western: Stephen Crane “The Blue Hotel” Detective: Raymond Chandler The Big Sleep

Sci-Fi

Stories by Poe

Assessment Breakdown
Continuous Assessment100% Examination Weight0%
Course Work Breakdown
TypeDescription% of totalAssessment Date
Short Answer Questionsn/a25%n/a
Assignmentn/a75%n/a
Reassessment Requirement Type
Resit arrangements are explained by the following categories:
Resit category 1: A resit is available for both* components of the module.
Resit category 2: No resit is available for a 100% continuous assessment module.
Resit category 3: No resit is available for the continuous assessment component where there is a continuous assessment and examination element.
* ‘Both’ is used in the context of the module having a Continuous Assessment/Examination split; where the module is 100% continuous assessment, there will also be a resit of the assessment
This module is category 1
Indicative Reading List

  • Aristotle / Horace / Longinus: 1976, Classical Literary Criticism, Penguin Harmondsworth,
  • Belsey, Catherine: 1985, The Subject of Tragedy, Oxford,
  • Eagleton, Terry: 2002, Sweet Violence: The Idea of the Tragic, Blackwell Oxford,
  • Wood, James: 2004, The Irresponsible Self, Chatto, London,
Other Resources

None

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