MA brochure - Modern Poetry - Queen's University Belfast

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Why Poetry at Queen’s? Poetry is intricately intertwined with the history of Queen’s University Belfast. The university has a proud tradition of nurturing creative and critical talents in the field of poetry. Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney, a graduate of, and former lecturer at Queen’s was a founding member of the ‘Belfast Group’ in the 1960s, in which the early careers of other internationally renowned poets -‐ Paul Muldoon and Michael Longley among them – were forged, and in which poets engaged with leading critics of modern poetry, such as Philip Hobsbaum and Edna Longley. The tradition of the Belfast Group continues in the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry, and in the commitment it has to the interaction of creative and critical activity. Postgraduate students who choose to study Modern Poetry in the School of English at Queen’s will be joining an academic environment with a long-‐standing reputation for the critical appreciation, reception and understanding of poetry from Ireland, Britain and the United States. Poets who come to Queen’s to develop their own writing have the unique opportunity of working in the Seamus Heaney Centre with some of Ireland’s finest poets . Academic Environment The School of English, together with the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry, is the largest English department in Ireland with a dedicated and growing postgraduate student community. We are home to over 100 Masters and research students and host readings, lectures and seminars throughout the year. Together with the University of Dublin, University College Dublin, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and An Chomhairle Ealaoin (Arts Council of Ireland), the School and the Heaney Centre c0-‐host the prestigious Ireland Chair of Poetry with the holder attached to each university in turn for a year at a time. Since its inception in 1998 the holders have been John Montague, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, Paul Durcan, and Michael Longley; the current Chair (2010-‐13) is Harry Clifton. Resources and Facilities The Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry is an internationally recognized centre for the study as well as the production of poetry. A dynamic and vibrant focal point in Ireland for writing, for criticism, and for the appreciation of modern literature, the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry promotes an ethos of lively exchange between poets, critics and students under its Director, the internationally renowned poet Professor Ciaran Carson, and its assistant director, the critic Dr Fran Brearton. The poets and poet-‐critics Ms Medbh McGuckian, Dr Sinead Morrissey and Dr Leontia Flynn are based in the Centre, along with Professor Emerita Edna Longley, one of the leading critics of Irish poetry and literature, who continues to challenge and define the categories and canons of modern poetry. Critics of modern poetry in the School also include Professor Edward Larrissy, Dr Fran Brearton, Dr Philip McGowan, and Dr Gail McConnell. The Centre’s journal of contemporary writing, The Yellow Nib, is published twice a year. The Centre runs a programme of literary events fortnightly each semester enabling students to hear some of the finest writers of our time firsthand. The new McClay Library at Queen’s offers students world-‐leading facilities and research resources including extensive archival materials (Seamus Heaney’s Beowulf papers for example) and rare books in the field of modern Irish poetry. Postgraduate students have access to work and computing facilities in the School of English and the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry as well as in the Humanities Postgraduate Centre and the International and Postgraduate Student Centre, located opposite the McClay Library.
MA in Poetry: Creativity and Criticism Convenors: Dr Fran Brearton & Dr Sinead Morrissey Recognising that poetry is an art form encompassing both creative and critical thought, the MA in Poetry: Creativity and Criticism brings together these strands for the first time in one MA programme. Suitable for both poets and critics alike, the programme provides workshops and training for poets, alongside a critical grounding that facilitates further study of creative writing (poetry) at PhD level. It also provides specialist academic study for critics and scholars who wish to focus on the study of poetry, at MA level, and into PhD work, introducing students to the major poetry traditions of Ireland, Britain, and the US, in terms of their formal properties and their critical, social, intellectual and political contexts. Furthermore, the programme offers the unique opportunity for students to develop critical perspectives in collaboration with creative writers and vice versa. The MA in Poetry is taught by poets and critics of international reputation who write and publish extensively in the field of modern poetry – Prof. Ciaran Carson, Ms Medbh McGuckian, Dr Sinead Morrissey, Dr Leontia Flynn, Prof. Edward Larrissy, Dr Fran Brearton, and Dr Philip McGowan. Compulsory modules: semester 1: (1) Reading Poetry: inspired by the original ‘Belfast Group’ workshops, attended by poets and critics, this module provides the opportunity for students to analyse and evaluate new and established writing (by themselves or others as appropriate) and in the process to engage with different approaches to the reading, writing, and analysis of poetry. The module therefore involves consideration of the poet-‐as-‐critic through study of critical writings by a range of British, Irish and American poets such as Yeats, Eliot, Auden, Stevens, Pound, Kavanagh, and Heaney, and of the poem itself as a vehicle for criticism. (2) Structure & Serendipity: Form in Poetry: A discussion and analysis of how poetic form in general is produced, this module introduces students to the form and language of poetry as well as the historical dimensions of, and contexts for, various poetic forms. It analyses poetic forms in detail, grounding students in specific poetic forms (e.g. the sonnet, the sestina, villanelle), reading a wide range of examples by different poets, with students engaging with a different set form each week. (3) Approaches to Poetry: craft, collections, contexts: Students, whether creatively or critically focused, research and discuss the different demands made on the work of the poet by a range of relevant archival, critical, and creative contexts. Awareness of a range of issues pertinent to the production of, and critical reaction to, poetry is developed through analyses of the format and production of a collection, the transition from manuscript to publication, processes of authorial revision, the anthologising of poems, the formation of creative and critical schools, and relevant critical and methodological contexts. [NB For the compulsory semester 1 modules, different assessment options are available (critical essay or poem-‐portfolio plus commentary) according to student interests.] Elective modules: semester 2 A POETRY CRITICISM (1) British Poetry 1880-‐1990 – offering a close study of the work of British poets, beginning with Thomas Hardy and Edward Thomas, moving through the War poets, the ‘Movement’, and the more recent work of Harrison, Hill, Hughes and Duffy.
Page 1: School of English Postgraduate D
Page 5 and 6: How to Apply and Funding Applic

MA brochure - Modern Poetry - Queen's University Belfast

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?