The final exam for this course will take place on Thursday, May 3 from 2 to 5 pm. The exam will be comprehensive and allow you to make connections between the many texts, in various genres, we have considered. It is not open book, but you can prepare for and even practice a thought out response to the final essay. You may not bring anything to the exam besides writing implements. Paper will be provided.


OVERALL ADVICE: Skim the readings, review your notes. Write out some of your own questions. Remind yourself of the most important


Part I. Identifications: characters, places, basic historical terms and significant poetic lines; some choice, e.g., 6 of 9 (1 hr) -- 30 points

SAMPLE IDs: Little Chandler, Fergus, Widow Quin, Parnell, O'Leary, Inisfree, Republicans

ADVICE: Review the history of Ireland web materials, the cast of characters of the plays, the titles of the poems assigned, and the major characters of Joyce's Dubliners and Portrait. Be prepared to offer at least two sentences in any response: one that offers basic identifying information about the term, one that goes beyond that to offer some statement about the term's significance.



Part II. Short Answer: focused questions on one or more texts tied together by theme, period, or genre; some choice, e.g., 3 of 5 (1 hr) -- 30 points

SAMPLE QUESTION: James Joyce famously described his technique in Dubliners as a style of "scrupulous meanness."  Citing particular examples as illustrative of Joyce's stylistic methods in at least two Dubliners stories, discuss what he meant by this term and discuss, in general, the motives that underlie Joyce's approach to Dubliners and Dubliners.
SAMPLE QUESTION: Identify the 1926 Yeats' poem that opens with the line "That is no country for old men" and discuss the significance of this line  (and this poem as a whole) within Yeats poetic output and career.
SAMPLE QUESTION: Discuss how "the West" of Ireland figuress in the Irish literary imagination, being sure in your response to include--as one text among several--J. M. Synge's "Playboy of the Western World," its staging in Dublin's Abbey Theatre, and its critical and popular reception.

ADVICE: A strong response to any of these questions will be in the form of a paragraph (or two) that speaks substantively and specifically to the text(s) under discussion; here, you should demonstrate your ability to balance the use of specific details and generalities when discussing a literary artifact (poem, play, or story) and its wider context (e.g., cultural, historical, biographical). Bottom line: precise observations said clearly and concisely will carry the day

NOTE: It remains possible that one of the sample questions above will become an actual question.


Part III. Extended Essay: a broadly thematic response to an open-ended prompt inviting you to work across periods and genres; 1 of 3 (1 hr) -- 40 points

ACTUAL QUESTION #1.: Since the founding, in 1902, of the National Irish Theatre Society (and subsequent physical establishment of the Abbey Theatre two years later), drama has exerted a significant role in Ireland's cultural history and identity. Drawing upon a range of texts, discuss the ways in which Irish history and Irish identity have been explored in the dramatic works we have read together this semester. As you frame your response, consider what persistent questions, themes, and concerns have animated Irish theatre as a living tradition.

ACTUAL QUESTION #2: If anyone has ever merited the title of national bard, it was W. B. Yeats (1865-1939), the greatest poet Ireland ever produced and one of the 20th century's most visionary and eloquent artists in any medium. Yet Yeats, for all his importance, is not the only significant poetic voice in the Irish literary tradition. Recognizing Yeats' pivotal role within that tradition, discuss Irish poetry as a cultural and political force. As you frame your response, consider the ways in which poetry (as a particular kind of language) has responded to the cultural crises that have marked Ireland's long, complex, still evolving journey toward nationhood and independence.

ACTUAL QUESTION #3: Talk about that hyphen--troublesome, ambivalent, separating, bridging hyphen--in the word "Anglo-Irish." James Joyce (through Portrait's Stephen Dedalus) refers to the complexity of Anglo-Irish relations when Stephen, conversing with the English director of studies, muses, "The language we are speaking is his before it is mine.... His language, so familiar and so foreign, will always be for me an acquired speech. I have not made or accepted its words. My voice holds them at bay. My soul frets in the shadow of his language." Using this memorable passage as a startpoint, discuss the complex relations between language and literature, nationalism and identity, in the context of an Irish literature written--in English--by a range of writers with differing relations to that language and to the events by which it came to be spoken by the Irish. As you frame your response, consider who (and what) can be called Anglo-Irish and who can speak (and has, historically, spoken), to echo Yeats, of "We Irish."


ADVICE: a strong response will range across multiple paragraphs, discuss multiple (say 3 to 5) texts, and demonstrate a reasonable command of detail. Each question has been crafted to encourage a variety of personalized responses.


Extra-credit; a likely, optional 5 point question

While many will finish early, you are encouraged to use the entire time period and to construct thoughtful, cogent, specific responses.