English 394MN - Music and the Irish Novel

Music and the Irish Novel introduces students to Irish novelists from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In these novels music plays a significant role, as a thematic, formal, or aesthetic inspiration. Traditional, opera, ballads, jazz, classical, pop, and contemporary music; all play a role in this literature. What do we mean when we say that a language, or a piece of literature, is "musical"? Why do writers of contemporary historical fiction favor musical references? This intertextual link will lead to inquiries into the role of music in prose fiction, and in particular in the Irish novel.

This course is open to juniors and seniors