This cultural history course will examine how four great Irish literary figures - Yeats, Joyce, Synge and O'Casey - reacted to the major historical events of their time, as seen in selections from their poetry, novels and plays. This is not a literature course but an attempt to show how history and literature intertwined during this critical period in Irish history which included the Easter Rising, the Anglo-Irish war and the Civil war. Historical videos, music and songs will feature.