Writing Unreason

Pre-requisites for enrolment

No prior knowledge of the subject is assumed.

Content of Course

1. Creativity and unreason: literary touchstones and psychoanalytic models.

2. 'Much madness is divinest sense': poems by Emily Dickinson.

3-4. Haunted houses: Henry James, The Turn of the Screw.

5-6. War, trauma, and everyday life: Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway.

7. Mad mothers, child poets: poems by Robert Lowell, Allen Ginsberg, Thom Gunn, Robert Hass

8. ‘Neurotic as hell’: Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar.

9. ‘Life’s disintegration’: Sylvia Plath, Ariel.

10. Writing unreason: poems by Frank Bidart.

Teaching method(s)

Students will read the texts independently. During the class hours, the tutor will present a mini-lecture on the texts, which will be followed by friendly and supportive group discussion, guided by the tutor to which all students will be encouraged to participate.

Learning outcomes

By the end of this course, students should be able to:

• Construct coherent, original arguments about ‘madness’ and ‘creativity’ by means of close reading and theoretically informed analysis;

• Analyse and evaluate texts, using recognised terminology to identify literary techniques;

• Evaluate secondary material and draw upon it when constructing arguments.

Sources

Core Readings

Poetry will be provided as handouts.

Essential:

• James, H. (1898) The Turn of the Screw (any edition)

• Plath, S. (196). The Bell Jar. London: Faber, 2005.

• Woolf, V. (1925). Mrs Dalloway. Ed. Stella McNichol. London: Penguin, 2000.

Recommended:

• McNaughton, J. and Saunders, C. eds. (2004). Madness and Creativity in Literature and Culture. London: Palgrave.

• Phillips, A. (2000) 'Poetry and Psychoanalysis,' in Phillips, A., Promises, Promises. London: Faber.

• Dodds, E. R. (1951). The Greeks and the Irrational. Reprint. Philadelphia: Greenpoint, 2022.

• Sherwin, M. (2011). 'Confessional' Writing and the Twentieth-Century Literary Imagination. London: Palgrave.

• Saltmarsh, H. B. (2019). Male Poets and the Agon of the Mother: Contexts in Confessional and Post-Confessional Poetry. Los Angeles: The University of South Carolina Press.

The tutor will recommend further reading at the beginning and throughout the course.

Class Handouts

Handouts with background information will be provided on a weekly basis.

Queries

If you have questions regarding the course or enrolment, please contact COL Reception at Paterson's Land by email COL@ed.ac.uk or by phone 0131 650 4400.

Student support

If you have a disability, learning difficulty or health condition which may affect your studies, please let us know by ticking the 'specific support needs' box on your course application form. This will allow us to make appropriate adjustments in advance and in accordance with your rights under the Equality Act 2010. For more information please visit the Student Support section of our website.