ENGLSH 4140 will explore several parts of the Irish literary heritage, stressing the connections authors have made between human culture and the natural world of Galway and the beautiful Irish west. While Galway city, the program’s home base, is an international center for contemporary music and culture, the surrounding countryside evokes and ancient Celtic and an intense relationship to the natural world. You will begin with texts from ancient Celtic and then medieval Ireland. These traditions were central to the work of William Butler Yeats, Lady Augusta Gregory and John Synge from the Irish Literary Revival of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In the latter part of the course, you will consider a range of contemporary authors, including nature writer Tim Robinson and poet Mary O’Malley, as well as other writers who are trying to reimagine the human-environment divide. In connection with this course, you will explore the countryside, including outings to Connemara, the Cliffs of Moher and one of the Aran Islands. This course will require a series of informal writing responses and a final paper.