Contemporary British Literature

Paper Code: 
ENG 325
Credits: 
4
Periods/week: 
4
Max. Marks: 
100
Objective: 

Course Objectives:

The course will enable the students to:

  • Identify the cultural and literary characteristics of the period  and trace the emergence of post (-War, -Empire,- Modern) sensibility in contemporary British literature
  • Analyse the influence of issues such as politics, history, ethnicity, geography, class and gender, in shaping the literature of the 20th century
  • Recognise the various poetic voices from the post-World War II era and discuss the contemporary reaction to traditional literary and cultural structures and concepts

 

Course Outcomes -

The students will:

  • Acquire knowledge of the experimentation in narrative, poetic and dramatic forms
  • Critically appreciate representative British writers from the 1950s to the present
  • Recognise the influence of historical, political and socio-cultural movements
  • Conduct a close analysis of representative contemporary British literary texts

 

14.00
Unit I: 
Unit I

Seamus Heaney

Whatever you say, say nothing

Punishment

Casualty

 

Philip Larkin

The Whitsun Weddings

Maiden Name

I Remember, I Remember

 

Thom Gunn

On The Move 

Autumn Chapter

 

12.00
Unit II: 
Unit II

John Fowles

The French Lieutenant’s Woman

10.00
Unit III: 
Unit III

Harold Pinter

The Homecoming

 

12.00
Unit IV: 
Unit IV

Muriel Spark

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

 

12.00
Unit V: 
Unit V

Ian McEwan

Atonement

 

SUGGESTED READINGS: 

Suggested Readings:

Chaterjee, Sisir. Philip Larkin: Poetry that Builds Bridges. Atlantic Publishers, 1999.

Draper, Ronald P, ed. The Literature of Region and Nation. St. Martin’s Press, 1989.

Esslin, Martin. Theatre of the Absurd. Bloomsbury Academic, 2014.

Marwick, Arthur. British Society since 1945. Penguin Books, 1982.

Motion, Andrew. Philip Larkin: A Writer’s Life. Faber & Faber, 1994.

Quigley, Austin.The Modern Stage and Other Words. Routledge, 2014.

Scigaj, Leonard M. Critical Essays on Ted Hughes. G.K. Hall, 2000.

 

Academic Year: 
2021-2022