Overview
A study of major texts of prose fiction from James Joyce and William Faulkner to the present day.
The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were times of unprecedented change to economic, cultural and political structures in Europe and America. Marx’s theories of class struggle, Freud’s theories of the unconscious, Darwin’s theories of evolution, and Einstein’s theory of relativity all made the world a more complicated place. Women’s demands for suffrage threatened order in the home, the invention of the airplane made the world seem smaller, and the x-ray exposed the body under the skin. The 1918-19 influenza pandemic, trauma from the First World War, and anxiety about rapid urbanisation and increasing dependency on technology added to the sense of rupture.
Many writers of the time felt that the literary techniques of the nineteenth century, particularly literary realism, were no longer capable of responding to the changes in society. They engaged with this sense of transformation by rallying to Ezra Pound’s call to ‘make it new’ and experimented with new ways of telling stories, new ways of presenting characters, new ways of representing life, and new ways of changing the world.
We will read texts that grapple with both the positive and negative aspects of living in a time of such rapid change and uncertainty about the future. We will also look at texts that engage with modernist legacies.
About this paper
| Paper title | Modernist Fiction |
|---|---|
| Subject | English |
| EFTS | 0.1500 |
| Points | 18 points |
| Teaching period(s) | Semester 1
(Distance learning)
Semester 1 (On campus) |
| Delivery mode | The Distance Learning offering of this paper is taught and assessed remotely |
| Domestic Tuition Fees ( NZD ) | $1,103.10 |
| International Tuition Fees | Tuition Fees for international students are elsewhere on this website. |
- Prerequisite
- 18 200-level ENGL points
- Schedule C
- Arts and Music
- Notes
- Students who have not passed the normal prerequisite may be admitted with approval from the Head of Department.
- Contact
- More information link
- View more information on the Department of English and Linguistics' website
- Teaching staff
Professor Maebh Long
- Textbooks
- Flann O’Brien – At Swim Two Birds
- Rebecca West – Return of the Soldier
- Virginia Woolf – Mrs Dalloway
- Jean Rhys – Voyage in the Dark
- Elizabeth Bowen – The Last September
- Anna Burns - Milkman
Excerpts of other texts will be made available online
- Graduate Attributes Emphasised
Interdisciplinary perspective, Lifelong learning, Communication, Critical thinking, Cultural understanding, Information literacy, Research.
View more information about Otago's graduate attributes.- Learning Outcomes
Students who successfully complete this paper will:
- Enhance their essay writing skills
- Be to understand the way form and style is used to express and question the modern human experience,
- Further develop critical thinking skills by analysing modernist texts and constructing arguments about them
- Engage with literary texts that reflect the diversity of modernity and modernism
- Further develop skills to locate, evaluate, and incorporate relevant source materials
Overview
Modernist Fiction came to break the rules, to make it new, to rewrite fiction for a changing world. Explores the ways modernist writers from across the world experimented with radical ways of telling stories.
The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were times of unprecedented change to economic, cultural and political structures in Europe and America. Marx's theories of class struggle, Freud's theories of the unconscious, and Einstein's theory of relativity all made the world a more complicated place. Women’s demands for suffrage were altering gendered norms, the invention of the aeroplane made the world seem smaller and the X-ray exposed the body under the skin. The 1918-19 influenza pandemic, trauma from the First World War and anxiety about rapid urbanisation and increasing dependency on technology added to the sense of rupture.
Many writers of the time felt that the literary techniques of the nineteenth century, particularly literary realism, were no longer capable of responding to the changes in society. They engaged with this sense of transformation by rallying to Ezra Pound’s call to "make it new" and experimented with new ways of telling stories, new ways of presenting characters, new ways of representing life and new ways of changing the world.
We will read texts that grapple with both the positive and negative aspects of living in a time of such rapid change and uncertainty about the future. We will also examine texts from across the world that engage with modernist legacies.
About this paper
| Paper title | Modernist Fiction |
|---|---|
| Subject | English |
| EFTS | 0.1500 |
| Points | 18 points |
| Teaching period(s) | Semester 1
(On campus)
Semester 1 (Distance learning) |
| Delivery mode | The Distance Learning offering of this paper is taught and assessed remotely |
| Domestic Tuition Fees | Tuition Fees for 2027 have not yet been set |
| International Tuition Fees | Tuition Fees for international students are elsewhere on this website. |
- Prerequisite
- 18 200-level ENGL points
- Schedule C
- Arts and Music
- Notes
- Students who have not passed the normal prerequisite may be admitted with approval from the Head of Department.
- Contact
- More information link
- View more information on the Department of English and Linguistics' website.
- Teaching staff
Convener: Professor Maebh Long
Other teaching staff to be confirmed.- Paper Structure
This paper consists of weekly two-hour lectures, supported by six two-hour workshops spread over the semester.
Weekly lectures will examine modernist works, their content and form and the context from which they have arisen. The tutorial workshops are designed to further students' knowledge of the ways modernist works are constructed. The workshops will also enable concentrated, comparative work on the texts.
- Textbooks
- Flann O'Brien – At Swim-Two-Birds
- Rebecca West – Return of the Soldier
- Virginia Woolf – Mrs Dalloway
- Jean Rhys – Voyage in the Dark
- Elizabeth Bowen – The Last September
- Anna Burns - Milkman
Excerpts of other texts will be made available online.
- Graduate Attributes Emphasised
Interdisciplinary perspective, Lifelong learning, Communication, Critical thinking, Cultural understanding, Information literacy, Research.
View more information about Otago's graduate attributes.- Learning Outcomes
Students who successfully complete this paper will have acquired or improved the following skills:
- Writing Literacy: produce precise, clear, grammatically correct, well-developed and well-organised texts that synthesise theoretical, cultural and literary insights
- Aesthetic Literacy: understand the way form and style is used to express and question the modern human experience and to be able to identify the literary techniques employed by authors
- Critical Thinking: further develop critical thinking skills by analysing modernist texts and constructing arguments about them
- Cultural Literacy: to engage with literary texts that reflect the diversity of modernity and modernism and to demonstrate understandings of the impacts of social differences on modernist writings and lives
- Research Literacy: to further develop skills to locate, evaluate and incorporate relevant source materials on modernism/modernity