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Module Specifications.

Current Academic Year 2024 - 2025

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Date posted: September 2024

Module Title Great Books: How Cononicity Works
Module Code EL211 (ITS) / LIT1031 (Banner)
Faculty Humanities & Social Sciences School English
Module Co-ordinatorMichael Hinds
Module Teachers-
NFQ level 8 Credit Rating 5
Pre-requisite Not Available
Co-requisite Not Available
Compatibles Not Available
Incompatibles Not Available
None
Description

This module offers an examination of how literary value is generated and disseminated throughout the history of Western culture, and will show how the idea of a literary canon has become problematized over the last half-century.

Learning Outcomes

1. Discuss knowledgeably the phenomenon of the western canon.
2. Express an aptly complicated sense of the perceived “greatness” of a writer of work
3. Perform readings of classic texts that open them up to a range of interpretative approaches
4. Argue whether or not canonicity is an ideologically neutral idea



Workload Full-time hours per semester
Type Hours Description
Lecture2Two per week
Tutorial1Every Second Week
Independent Study6Reading and reflection
Total Workload: 9

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

The Pagan Bible: Ovid’s Metamorphoses

Paradise Lost and Moby-Dick: Great Books Nobody Reads?

The Madwoman in the Attic: The Canonical Peripheralization of Women

Defining The Classic English Novel

Modern Classics.

What makes a contemporary classic?

Sappho
Origins of Canonicity and Mystique

Alice Walker
Diversity and Canon Wars

Assessment Breakdown
Continuous Assessment100% Examination Weight0%
Course Work Breakdown
TypeDescription% of totalAssessment Date
PortfolioStudents will submit a short piece at mid -term where they define aspects of canonicity, then an opinion piece on key issues, then two final essays.100%Sem 2 End
Indicative Reading List

  • Donoghue, Denis: 2003, American Classics, OUP, Oxford,
  • Eliot, TS: 0, Selected Essays, Faber, London,
  • Bloom, Harold: 1994, The Western Canon, Harper Collins, New York,
  • Kermode, Frank: 1989, History and Value, OUP, Oxford,
  • Showalter, Elaine: 1987, A Literature of Their Own, Virago, London,
  • Gilbert, Sandra & Gubar, Susan: 2000, The Madwoman in the Attic, Yale, New Haven,
Other Resources

None

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