A Learning Diary which comments upon 6 posts from the student’s contributions to the discussion forum, 1500 words (post word count not included). [Learning Outcomes: 1, 2, 3 ] (20%)
Critical Review, 2000 Words [Learning Outcomes: 1, 2, 3, 5 ] (20%)
Essay, 4000 words [Learning Outcomes: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5] (60%)

This module investigates Stream-of-Consciousness as a distinct literary mode of representing the mind, addressing the following question throughout: what cultural conditions have to be met for Stream-of-Consciousness to flourish as literary discourse?

Introductory Part 1 of the module is devoted to Stream-of-Consciousness as special cultural discourse covering the pre-history of the device prior to its Modernist proliferation. Prompted by Modernist reliance on the literary discourse of myth as original model for the construction of Stream-of Consciousness, particularly pre-classical Greek, some of the poetry and epic writing of the period (Sappho, Homer, Aeschylus) will be sampled, as well as pre-cursor forms of Modernist Interior Monologue in Early Modern (Soliloquy) , Romantic (Ecstasy/Madness) and Victorian (Dramatic Monologue) writing.

The central section is devoted to the writings of the Modernist generation, with a focus on Joyce’s oeuvre as representative of the movement’s use of the device. His ‘Work in Progress’ provides a compendium for the study of Stream-of-Consciousness in Modernism as the language of ‘Epiphany’: in the journey that leads from Stephen Hero to Finnegan’s Wake, Interior Monologue is being radically transformed from initial ‘Free Indirect Objective’ into representing the mind as fully ‘Unframed Direct Interior’, resulting in the creation of a new language of myth.

The final third part of the module will track developments of Stream-of Consciousness into the post-modern(ist) period featuring works by Paul Auster and Don DeLillo as examples for the creation of a fluid transatlantic/New York urban consciousness in contemporary prose fiction.

The creative writing exercises are designed so that students can explore several essential narrative techniques. For example, workshops for creative writers will cover styles such as Modernism, Existentialism and Social Realism and will allow student writers to explore interior monologues and performative dialogue via such writers as Virginia Woolf, Samuel Beckett and playwright Jim Cartwright.

1.Understand Stream-of Consciousness as a distinct form of literary discourse under specific conditions of cultural production, know how it works as a predominant technique of Modernist writing and see it in operation at different times in the history of literary writing, including the Postmodern period.
Knowledge and understanding

2. Categorise distinct literary discourses as historical phenomena and as functions of specific sets of socio-cultural conditions.
Learning

3. Choose and critically analyse key primary texts and connect them to theory and historical practice of Stream-of Consciousness as a cultural phenomenon OR produce a piece of creative prose fiction/poetry which demonstrates applied knowledge of the new modes of writing studied on the module.
Enquiry

4. Construct a critical argument in a meaningful academic discussion of the material.
Application

5. Locate and evaluate relevant literary sources and research material and assess their relevance to your project.
Reflection

Distance Learning Delivery:
Short lecture per week of video-recorded and media supported material;
Guided reading per week;
Discussion forum contributions;
Coursework Guidance and feedback online.

Access to Library and IT facilities, especially the electronic journals collection and JSTOR archive, the MLA database, the Oxford Online Reference Collection, Blackboard.

Suggested for Purchase
Kolocotroni, Vassiliki, et al (eds) (1998). Modernism. An Anthology of Sources and Documents. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP.

Essential Reading
Reader of Primary Texts Excerpted (provided)
(Typically Comprising of Texts by: Sappho (Fragments); Heraclitus (Aphorisms); Homer Iliad Odyssey; Aeschylus Prometheus; Shelley Prometheus Unbound ; Sophocles King Oedipus; Shakespeare Excerpts Macbeth, Lear, Othello, Tempest; John Donne Poems; Laurence Sterne Tristram Shandy; Wordsworth Coleridge Lyrical Ballads; Shelley ‘Ode to West Wind’, ‘Mont Blanc’; Tennyson ‘Ulysses’, Maud; Browning Andrea del Sarto ‘Fra Filippo; Lippi’ and other Poems; Swinburne ‘Anactoria’, and other Poems)

Other Primary Texts (independently sourced)
Coleridge’s Notebooks. A Selection (ed. Seamus Perry), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002;
James Joyce Stephen Hero, ‘The Dead’, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses, Finnegan’s Wake;
Woolf Mrs Dalloway, The Waves, ‘Modern Fiction’;
Bergson Creative Evolution.


Essential Critical Reading
Bowling, Lawrence Edward. ‘What is the Stream of Consciousness Technique?’ PMLAVol. 65, No. 4 (Jun., 1950), pp. 333-345.
Dainton Barry (2000), Stream of Consciousness – Unity and Continuity in Conscious Experience, London: Routledge
Dennet Daniel (1993), Consciousness Explained, London: Penguin
Humphrey (1954), Robert. Stream of Consciousness in the Modern Novel, Berkeley: University of California
James, William (1890), The Principles of Psychology. New York: Holt.
Randell, Stevenson (1992), Modernist Fiction: An Introduction. Lexington: University of Kentucky. Sachs, Oliver (2004), "In the River of Consciousness." New York Review of Books, 15 January 2004.
Soteriou, Matthew (2000), ‘Content and the stream of consciousness’, In Consciousness: New Philosophical Essays. Oxford University Press.
Tumanov, Vladimir. Mind Reading: Unframed Direct Interior Monologue in European Fiction. Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi, 1997. (Googlebooks)

Further Reading
François Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel
Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Notebooks (preferably: Coleridge’s Notebooks. A Selection [ed. Seamus Perry], Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music
Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dream