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Semester 1

Working Class Representations (ENLI10271)

Course Website

https://www.ed.ac.uk/literatures-languages-cultures/english-literature/undergraduate/current/honours

Subject

English Literature

College

CAHSS

Credits

20

Normal Year Taken

3

Delivery Session Year

2023/2024

Pre-requisites

Visiting students must have completed 4 English Literature courses at grade B or above. We will only consider University/College level courses, and we do not consider civilisation & other interdisciplinary courses, freshman seminars, writing/composition courses or film/cinema/media courses; visiting students who have taken multiple courses in literature in other languages, should have passed at least two courses in English Literature as well. **Please note that this course may incur additional costs to purchase core texts** **Please see Additional Restrictions below**

Course Summary

This course examines how working-class writers have represented themselves as well as how they have been represented by others. It pays due attention to the formal modes employed by working-class writing (realism, expressionism, surrealism, fantasy etc)across a range of genres - fiction, poetry, drama and film. The course moves from the nineteenth century to the present in order to understand how class identities change over time yet it also affirms how the reconstitution of class is not synonymous with its disappearance. The course will focus on key issues such as the relationship between culture and politics, the intellectual or writer as a socially mediated figure, solidarity and individuality, social mobility, gender, voice and vernacular, the politics of representation.

Course Description

Topics Schedule and Texts / Films: **Class and Representation: *Gerard Manley Hopkins, Tom's Garland: Upon the Unemployed (poem handout provided); *Elizabeth Gaskell, Mary Barton; *Patrick MacGill, Children of the Dead End; *Robert Tressell, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists; *James Hanley,-Boy. **Post-WWII: Society, Class, Consumerism: *Alan Sillitoe, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning; *Shelagh Delaney, A Taste of Honey; *Up the Junction (film); Kes (film); *Tony Harrison, Selected Poems; *Tom Leonard, Intimate Voices. **There is no such thing as society: the 1980s and Beyond; *James Kelman, How Late It Was, How Late; *Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting and film version (Dir. Danny Boyle); *Plus a section of films: Dockers; Riff-Raff; Brassed Off; Billy Elliott.

Assessment Information

Written Exam 0%, Coursework 100%, Practical Exam 0%

Additional Restrictions

Unless you are nominated on an English Literature exchange agreement, visiting students are only permitted to enrol in one 3rd year English Literature course each, per semester, before the start of the relevant semester’s welcome period – and spaces on each course are limited so cannot be guaranteed for any student. Enrolment in a second course from this group will depend on whether there are still spaces available in the September Welcome Period, and cannot be guaranteed, and students will not be permitted to enrol in three 3rd year English Literature courses in the same semester at any time. It is NOT appropriate for students to contact staff within this subject area to ask for an exception to be made; all enquiries to enrol in these courses must be made through the CAHSS Visiting Student Office. This is due to the limited number of spaces available in this very popular subject area.

view the timetable and further details for this course