I'll be doing English next year...

Kovik · 19-06-2006 7:49pm #1

...assuming there's a massive collapse in points. Anyway, I thought I'd humour/torture myself by getting ahead on the reading requirements for the course during the summer. Can anyone tell me when the reading list gets published and where I can get it from?

claire h · 19-06-2006 10:34pm

You could get in touch with Diane, the executive officer for Freshman students - contact info is up at http://www.tcd.ie/English/contact/ - she'll post out the reading list when it's available if you leave in an SAE.

Not sure when exactly it gets done up, but I do know that a lot of the time it's just the previous year's reading list - I got mine in October and several of the texts changed when the courses were actually taught, so it's not a 100% reliable list.

Kovik · 19-06-2006 10:41pm

You speak wisdom. You may put on the wisdom hat and stand upon the intelligence stool.

Thank you!

Squoosh · 20-06-2006 12:20am

English Studies, not TSM?

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA you'll be subjected to the torture of Old English! Suffer! And it's the one subject you can't fail! Mwahahahahahaha, so glad I'm done and dusted with that.

Ah no. It's not that bad. Not really. Well it is, but you only have one term of it, the last. You'll survive. Probably. Possibly.

Kovik · 20-06-2006 3:57am

Well I have English TSM along with Film put down as my first choice, with pure English as my second. Will I get enough points for either? Only time will tell.

Actually, no. No I won't.

Squoosh · 20-06-2006 3:35pm

I have an actually useful post to add this time; if you know someone who'll get you into the Trinity local site (someone who goes there that is) they could get you into the examination papers section for English Junior Fresh. The exam papers have questions on almost every book on the course, so you'll get a good idea of what you should be reading from that.

I'd copy and paste them for you, but my Adobe Reader isn't working for some unknown reason and they're all pdf files.

Hope this is a bit more help than the last one!

europerson · 20-06-2006 8:53pm

According to the exam papers, it looks like you should look at:

Matthew Arnold
Ferdinand de Saussure
Roman Jakobson
Roland Barthes
Sigmund Freud
Michel Foucault
Louis Pierre Althusser
Ania Loomba
Edward Said
Pierre Bourdieu
Jean Baudrillard
Jean-François Lyotard
Walter Benjamin
Jacques Lacan
Antonio Gramsci
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
Jane Austen
Thomas Hardy
Kate Chopin
Virginia Woolf
Edmund White
Jeanette Winterson
William Butler Yeats
James Joyce
Seán O'Casey
Patrick Kavanagh
John McGahern
Seamus Heaney
Eavan Boland
Tom Murphy
Patrick McCabe
Edmund Burke
William Blake
William Godwin
John Barrell
Virgil
John Milton
John Dryden
Henry Fielding
John Gay
Samuel Richardson
William Wordsworth
Laurence Sterne
Klas Östergren
Peter van Diest
Henry Medwall
Sir Philip Sidney
JW Lever
Thomas Kyd
Thomas Dekker
Francis Beaumont
John Webster
William Shakespeare
Christopher Marlowe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Klaus Mann
Thomas Mann
Hector Berlioz
Oscar Wilde
Mikhail Bulgakov
Sophocles
Jean Racine
Henrik Ibsen
Niccolò Machiavelli
Benjamin Jonson
Molière
Dion Boucicault
Anton Chekhov
William Langland
Geoffrey Chaucer
Cynewulf
Some Anglo-Saxon stuff of unknown provenance

europerson · 20-06-2006 8:54pm

By the way, don't take that as a complete list. I'm sure the English Department would change their courses every year.

punka · 20-06-2006 11:06pm

I think you have to read Dryden's translation of the Aeneid at some point in first year. Read that, it's amazing, and by far the best English translation that exists.

Crash · 20-06-2006 11:42pm

You know Europerson, i think i shall make it my mission to read one of each from that list this summer

either that or finish off the reading list from the 4th year gothic and horror fiction course - Darryl Jones has good taste in books

hrmm never did finish "the monk"...

John · 20-06-2006 11:48pm

&#231 wrote: »

hrmm never did finish "the monk"...

Do, it's quite good towards the end.

Crash · 20-06-2006 11:56pm

I foolishly started reading it just prior to the leaving cert - will have to get it out of the library.

John · 21-06-2006 12:21am

I read it a couple of months ago, I was attracted by the very dramatic cover of a demon carrying a man through the air.

Crash · 21-06-2006 12:28am

actually - if you like lovecraft and that sort of thing, give M R James a read - ghost storyesque version of lovecraft -much better written overall.

Oh, and look for a book called perfume - (translated from the german Das Parfum) by Patrick Süskind - very dark, and an excellent read.

Also Angela Carter's bloody chambers and other stories - reworkings of old fairy tales - a feminist leaning but despite that a good read :P

John · 21-06-2006 12:40am

Thanks, being the only other person I know to have heard of The Monk I will be more than willing to take a risk on these. Oh and I will see your recommendations with Count Stenbock. Quite hard to find but a big influence on Lovecraft. I think you'd like him.

Kovik · 21-06-2006 1:04am

Wow. Thanks all.

Are specific works by those authors typically specified for the course?

The Monk is teh sex0r, by the way.

Squoosh · 21-06-2006 2:22am

[*]Matthew Arnold
[*]Ferdinand de Saussure
[*]Roman Jakobson
[*]Roland Barthes
[*]Sigmund Freud
[*]Michel Foucault
[*]Louis Pierre Althusser
[*]Ania Loomba
[*]Edward Said
[*]Pierre Bourdieu
[*]Jean Baudrillard
[*]Jean-François Lyotard
[*]Walter Benjamin
[*]Jacques Lacan
[*]Antonio Gramsci
[*]Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
[*]Jane Austen
[*]Thomas Hardy - Tess of the d'Urbervilles
[*]Kate Chopin - The Awakening
[*]Virginia Woolf - Orlando
[*]Edmund White
[*]Jeanette Winterson - Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit
[*]William Butler Yeats
[*]James Joyce - Dubliners
[*]Seán O'Casey
[*]Patrick Kavanagh
[*]John McGahern
[*]Seamus Heaney
[*]Eavan Boland
[*]Tom Murphy
[*]Patrick McCabe
[*]Edmund Burke - extracts only
[*]William Blake - extracts only
[*]William Godwin
[*]John Barrell
[*]Virgil -
[*]John Milton - Paradise Lost
[*]John Dryden - Aeneid translation
[*]Henry Fielding
[*]John Gay
[*]Samuel Richardson - Pamela
[*]William Wordsworth
[*]Laurence Sterne - Tristram Shandy
[*]Klas Östergren
[*]Peter van Diest
[*]Henry Medwall
[*]Sir Philip Sidney - wonderful, read everything of his
[*]JW Lever
[*]Thomas Kyd - Spanish Tragedy (?)
[*]Thomas Dekker
[*]Francis Beaumont
[*]John Webster
[*]William Shakespeare
[*]Christopher Marlowe
[*]Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - Faust
[*]Klaus Mann
[*]Thomas Mann
[*]Hector Berlioz
[*]Oscar Wilde
[*]Mikhail Bulgakov
[*]Sophocles
[*]Jean Racine
[*]Henrik Ibsen
[*]Niccolò Machiavelli - The Prince
[*]Benjamin Jonson
[*]Molière
[*]Dion Boucicault
[*]Anton Chekhov
[*]William Langland - Piers Plowman
[*]Geoffrey Chaucer
[*]Cynewulf - in Old English book
[*]Some Anglo-Saxon stuff of unknown provenance - in Old English book

Alright, the stuff in red is all in the Critical and Cultural Theory book which I really can't remember the name of right now. The stuff in blue (except for the Shakespeare) is all in the Kinney editions of either Medieval Drama: An Anthology or Renaissance Drama: An Anthology. Do NOT, I repeat do NOT buy either of these. It's a total waste of money (loads of people in my first year bought either one or the other without realising that all the plays weren't in both, and they're really expensive) and you can get them on long loan from the library, if you get there quick. The stuff in green I am reasonably sure is all given to you on handouts in The Essay course - they'll be fairly compact and won't take too long to read. Oh, and don't worry about the Old English stuff. Just get the book when you get the list.

I've stuck in the titles of novels that I can remember; you may as well read as much Austen and Shakespeare as you can though, they're both going to pop up again and again. Richardson's Pamela is WITHOUT DOUBT the worst novel I have ever, ever read. It is awesomely excruciating. But you have to read it, so you can go through the bonding experience of hating it with everyone else. And it is the first real novel blah blah blah blah. It's still rubbish.

Hope that's useful!

claire h · 21-06-2006 2:23am

Kovik wrote:

Are specific works by those authors typically specified for the course?

Yep. Most courses (and exam qs) are text-specific rather than author-specific (unless you're looking at a poet or a literary theorist/critic).

Austen turned up on three JF courses this year (or possibly more, someone from SH may have some to add) - Pride & Prejudice on the Lit & Sex course, and Northanger Abbey on The Hero and Romanticism & Revolution. Most of the other writers only show up once, with one particular text to look at.

ETA adding to Squoosh's list:

Jane Austen - Pride & Prejudice, Northanger Abbey
Edmund White - A Boy's Own Story [not on course 05/06, replaced with Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray]
Charlotte Bronte - Villette [05/06, anyway]
James Joyce - The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Patrick Kavanagh - The Great Hunger
John McGahern - Amongst Women
Seamus Heaney - any poetry that deals with memory/cultural history/archaeology etc
Tom Murphy - Bailegangaire
Patrick McCabe - The Butcher Boy
William Godwin - Caleb Williams
John Gay - The Beggar's Opera
William Wordsworth - The Prelude
Laurence Sterne - The Life & Opinions of Tristram Shandy
Mary Shelley - Frankenstein
Elizabeth Bowen - The Last September
Charlotte Lennox - The Female Quixote
Matthew Lewis - The Monk [which, as has already been established, beats yer standard soap any day of the week for drama and craziness]

Pet · 21-06-2006 3:04am

John McGahern - Amongst Women

I hated this book, and yet I liked Cat's Eye...(shut up, Dec)

What kind of novel is Richardson's Pamela?

Crash · 21-06-2006 10:16am

William Godwin - Caleb Williams

you know, i'm almost sure i've read this, but its somewhat non existant in my mind...

Squoosh · 21-06-2006 11:19am

Pet wrote:

What kind of novel is Richardson's Pamela?

It's an epistolatory novel, first published in 1740, and one of the very first - if not the very first - novels ever published or written. That fact, however, doesn't make it any less absolutely awful. It's terrible. It's preachy, annoying, unbelievable, irritating, hard to read, and downright patronising. If I could find Richardson today I'd punch him.

Don't do it unless you HAVE to.

Oh I've just remembered - the Henry Fielding book on the course is Joseph Andrews.

Kovik · 21-06-2006 12:18pm

Hey, thanks again. I'll go pick up a few of those titles today. It seems I've read some of them which makes me feel all prepared and 1337 and such.

I offer you love.

fiveone · 29-06-2006 7:30pm

Or you could, you know, read what you actually want to while you still have time on your hands. Everythings relavent anyway. Im slightly sceptical of the "head-start" mentality but I suppose it'll be of use to you.

ZWEI_VIER_ZWEI · 29-06-2006 9:03pm

Sabre_wolf wrote:

Accepts love on behalf of the forum.

Sabre_wolf...though you made a grammar error in one of your posts ;_;

Kovik · 01-07-2006 2:51am

lydonst wrote:

Or you could, you know, read what you actually want to while you still have time on your hands. Everythings relavent anyway. Im slightly sceptical of the "head-start" mentality but I suppose it'll be of use to you.

Well, some dude at the open day told me, essentially, that it was vital to do so. And I'm not going to argue with a bald man.

Right_Side · 01-07-2006 1:28pm

Kovik wrote:

Well, some dude at the open day told me, essentially, that it was vital to do so. And I'm not going to argue with a bald man.

If I were you I'd just enjoy my time off. Course content changes very frequently.

It will mean more to you if you do it first in lectures anyway... thats their function... otherwise we could just get a reading list sent to us and do an exam in May!

Squoosh · 01-07-2006 4:02pm

Kovik wrote:

Well, some dude at the open day told me, essentially, that it was vital to do so. And I'm not going to argue with a bald man.

Yeah, he lied to you, nobody does that. Ever.

Murv · 02-07-2006 11:18pm

HA. Reading. I remember I thought I had to do that. Dark days they were.

sterculelum · 31-12-2006 3:59am

Just out of curiosity... how many books are English students expected to read throughout the course of the year... and how much time do they have to do it? And how many hours lectures? Is it tough??

31-12-2006 5:01am

sterculelum wrote:

Just out of curiosity... how many books are English students expected to read throughout the course of the year... and how much time do they have to do it? And how many hours lectures? Is it tough??

On the final point, you'll be hard pressed to find a course in college that is 'easy', especially given that one person's strength is another person's weakness.

Lectures I don't think is that many, and am even unsure if it makes it into double figures, though that might depend if you're doing TSM or Single Honours.

Looksee at the School Handbook (you're looking at JF - Junior Freshman, i.e. 1st year; SH = Single Honours, TSM = Two Subject Moderatorship) here: http://www.tcd.ie/English/assets/docs/School_Handbook_%202006-2007.pdf. It mentions about the different exams you take, and even details the deadlines for the essays you have to hand in (which is quite handy. I always get additional assignments from random lecturers not knowing that we have other assignments due).

This thread, in fact, has some suggestions for whom and/or what you should read, as well as a response by someone about their impression of the reading list. Look again!

sterculelum · 31-12-2006 5:26am

Myth wrote:

On the final point, you'll be hard pressed to find a course in college that is 'easy', especially given that one person's strength is another person's weakness.

Lectures I don't think is that many, and am even unsure if it makes it into double figures, though that might depend if you're doing TSM or Single Honours.

Looksee at the School Handbook (you're looking at JF - Junior Freshman, i.e. 1st year; SH = Single Honours, TSM = Two Subject Moderatorship) here: http://www.tcd.ie/English/assets/docs/School_Handbook_%202006-2007.pdf. It mentions about the different exams you take, and even details the deadlines for the essays you have to hand in (which is quite handy. I always get additional assignments from random lecturers not knowing that we have other assignments due).

This thread, in fact, has some suggestions for whom and/or what you should read, as well as a response by someone about their impression of the reading list. Look again!

Ah well obviously it's not "easy"... I'm just wondering like what standard in say Leaving Cert English grade you'd want to be or how difficult it is to keep on top of the course and everything...

Thanks for link and everything tho.

I'll be doing English next year...

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