2014_SecondSemesterBritishCivilization

I.

The twentieth century sequel to the British Empire old and New Empires
the First and the Second World Wars: political, social, cultural consequences
of the wars for Britain (3 lectures)
A. stages in the dispersion of the British Empire; the emancipation of women;
the divided society; the Irish case; the post-colonial world and post-colonial
English writers winning Nobel Prizes for literature
B. changes in the literary taste and the literary canon visible in post-war
writings : direct and veiled echoes of the war in literature
(i)the poetry written in the trenches 1914-1918 versus the sophisticated,
tragic and ironic perspective on the Great War in T.S. Eliots The Waste Land
and Gerontion (1922; 1929);
(ii) the veiled polemic, in Virginia Wools Mrs. Dalloway, between shellshocked men and women triumphant through sensibility; the dystopian
universal in George Orwells political and historical dystopia 1984; dystopia
and civilizational regression in John Fowless Lord of the Flies)

Bibliography for the first module:

History and Heritage:
David McDowall: An Illustrated History of Britain. Harlow: Addison Wesley Longman.
1989/1997) The Twentieth Century (chapters 22 and 23)
Isaacs, Alan and Jennifer Monk, The Cambridge Illustrated Dictionary of English
Heritage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1987 (The Commonwealth)

Literature
Golding, William. Lord of the Flies.London: Penguin- Perigee Trade.2011.
Greenblatt, Stephen (general editor). The Norton Anthology of English Literature.
Volume 2. New York, London: W.W. Norton & Company.2006 (Voices from World War I
p. 1954-1980)(T.S. Eliot: The Waste Land 2295-2308)
Kereaschi Rodica, Antologie de poezie a s. XX, Bucuresti: Tipografia Universitatii
Bucuresti.1977.
Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four.London: Penguin.1974.
Woolf, Virginia . Mrs. Dalloway. London: Tauchnitz. 1934

Zirra, Ioana. British Literature in the Twentieth Century: Themes, Paradigms,

Authors, Approaches. Bucuresti: Editura Universitatii Bucuresti.2013. (in print)

II. Londons social, political and cultural geography

(a)

Britains central political institutions in the twentieth century (the

parliament, the Cabinet, Downing Street, the civil service)

(b)

Londons West End, West End Theatre, the City of London, London Parks,
East End London

(c)

Central/Local Schools and churches

Bibliography for the Second Module:

History and Heritage
Isaacs, Alan and Jennifer Monk, The Cambridge Illustrated Dictionary of English
Heritage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1987
Literature:
Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four.London: Penguin.1974.
Woolf, Virginia . Mrs. Dalloway. London: Tauchnitz. 1934