This module will introduce you to literature written in English by Irish writers and published between 1914 and 2014. It surveys a wide range of texts – novels, poetry, and plays – each of which might be appreciated as a radical literary and/or cultural experiment with far reaching impact. Our course covers the greater part of the twentieth century and comes up to the near present; our readings of literature will necessarily be situated within their specific social, political and historical contexts. We will also explore major developments in Ireland in the discipline and practice of literary criticism as a way of shaping how we talk about the texts we read. We will consider work by writers including James Joyce, Elizabeth Bowen, Samuel Beckett, Edna O’Brien, Seamus Heaney, Brian Friel, Martin McDonagh, Eimear McBride and Sally Rooney.