Topics vary semester to semester. Specific topics may satisfy different Core Program requirements. In Spring 2025, the course will be:
Trivial Comedies for Serious People: New Comedy from Ancient Greece to Modern Ireland
Sleepless in Seattle…How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days…James Joyce’s Ulysses…Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days. What do these widely diverse artistic creations share in common? They all emerge, or so this course will contend, in response to the ancient dramatic form known as New Comedy, an artistic genre that was to succeed both Greek Tragedy and Greek Old Comedy, and more commonly known as Romantic Comedy. Thus, where many critics today seek to understand the masterpieces of Irish Literature from within Ireland itself, that is, from the largely immanent perspectives of power, politics, and culture native to the island, this class will consider the possibility that the great comic achievements of Irish authors such as Wilde, Synge, Joyce, Beckett, and McDonagh also developed in response to a genre that emerged far beyond Ireland’s national borders. In the first part of this course, we will interrogate the genre of New Comedy as it develops in the classical tradition through Euripides, Menander, Plautus, and Terence. In the second part, we will see how this legacy unfolds in the works of Dante, Shakespeare, and Restoration Comedy, in a tradition that carries over even into our own Netflix specials. In the third part, we will explore the complex, and often perverse, ways in which the genre manifests in the modern Irish tradition. Special attention will be paid throughout the course to the central role that female characters play in the unfolding history of this popular dramatic genre, from ancient to modern times. This course is for advanced CSLC majors: students should have junior or senior standing; must have taken CSLC 200, 201, and at least two other 100, 200 or 300 level CSLC courses; or have obtained the written permission of the instructor. Students who receive a grade of C or above on their final paper will pass their second-stage writing requirement.