Module Information

This module ensures that a suite of theories have a place in the department’s teaching portfolio: feminism and gender studies, and archipelagic criticism. As such, the module not only allows students to apply the theoretic framework to the poetic texts studied, but will also stimulate them to reassess the poetic canons of Ireland, Scotland and Wales 1400–1800. The module’s chronology offers students an opportunity to read and analyze Medieval and Early Modern texts, and to identify patterns in the diction, genres and themes of Welsh, Irish and Scottish women poets. In this respect, the module is, indeed, concerned with questions of gender, but it is also concerned with questions of national comparison and contrast.

The module focuses on a crucial period in the history of women’s poetry in Ireland, Scotland and Wales with regard to its transmission and development in oral, manuscript and print media, alongside a burgeoning public sphere and literary marketplace. Introductory lectures will discuss factors such as socio-economic contexts of women poets and the tensions between professionalism and amateurism. The module is structured according to genres/themes in order to cut across chronological, national and linguistic boundaries and encourage students to engage with the interactions across the three nations.

Context: feminism and gender studies (European and Anglo-American framework); contextualize the module in women’s studies within Welsh, Irish and Scottish literary studies and its impact on the respective literary canons of the three nations (particularly with respect of the indigenous languages); discuss the arguments for a discrete module such as this, rather than a thematic or period-specific module that mainstreams women’s poetry. Question the validity of the concept of a ‘female tradition’ in all three national literatures; sketch general patterns such as the obstacles that women poets faced (domestic expectations, socio-economic constraints; education and literacy; the nature of the indigenous poetic traditions), training and amateur/professional status of women poets; poetic authority and authorial voice.

Voices, themes and genres of women’s poetry in Ireland, Scotland and Wales (textual analysis):

‘Elegy’: mother’s laments; national differences such as the politicized elegy in Ireland (the keen) and Jacobite Scotland.

‘Love and relationships’: love poetry; erotic verse; friendship poetry.

‘Religious verse’: devotional poetry (private and public spheres); the carol and the hymn (public sphere, congregational); dynamics of Catholicism / Protestant Reformation / Counter Reformation / Nonconformity.

A selection of poems by women in Welsh, Irish, and Scottish Gaelic will be read under each theme. Texts and translations will be provided.