Tragedy and Modernity (VS1) (U02371)

? Credit Points : 20 ? SCQF Level : 10 ? Acronym : LLC-3-U01284

This course explores the attempts made by various schools of theatre to revive the concept of tragedy within modernity. The crisis in enlightenment thinking triggers a debate about the possibility (or impossibility) of the tragic. The various schools of performance tackle this issue in differing and sometimes conflicting ways. Athenian Tragedy provides a set of conventions and concepts that are reworked in modernist fashion. At the same time, it provides an example of the vexed relationships between modernity, tradition and classicism. As a reconfiguration of the sublime, the aesthetic or the political, the tragic, as form and content, helps create new languages of performance. Through the works of Ibsen, Strindberg, Wilde, O'Neill, Brecht, Beckett and Heiner Muller this course examines the types of tragedy formulated within modernity.

Entry Requirements

? This course is only available to part year visiting students.

? This course is a variant of the following course : U01284

? Special Arrangements for Entry : Students require the approval of EITHER the Visiting Undergraduate Admissions Office OR the head of English Literature before enrolling.

? Costs : Essential course texts

Subject Areas

Home subject area

English Literature, (School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures, Schedule G)

Delivery Information

? Normal year taken : 3rd year

? Delivery Period : Semester 1 (Blocks 1-2)

? Contact Teaching Time : 2 hour(s) per week for 10 weeks

? Other Required Attendance : 1 hour(s) per week for 10 weeks

All of the following classes

Type	Day	Start	End	Area
Lecture	Thursday	09:00	10:50	Central

Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes

- to familiarise students with classical as well as modern theories of tragedy
- to examine the significance of psychoanalysis for tragic theory
- to familiarise students of the significance of performance conventions
- to create awareness of movements of performance
- to create a comparative relationships between the different playwrights
- to assess the significance of tragic theory within general literary theory