Irish Literature in Transition, 1880–1940: Volume 4

An innovative volume offering a remapping of a crucial period in Irish literary history based on contemporary developments in scholarship.

Marjorie Elizabeth Howes (Edited by)

9781108480451, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 12 March 2020

396 pages
23.5 x 15.9 x 2.6 cm, 0.69 kg

'The overarching achievements of this collection are its extensions of the scope for critical intervention into the years during and immediately succeeding the Revival. The collection also greatly bene!ts from its inclusion of criticism on overlooked writers such as George Egerton, Katherine Cecil Thurston, and George Moore alongside regular stalwarts such as Joyce, Yeats, and Bowen. Eclectic, necessarily diverse, and rigorous, Irish Literature in Transition, 1880-1940 is an important investigation into two periods of distinctive artistic and critical creativity that manages to seamlessly survey the development of cultural discourses and identify the cultural movements that made them possible.' Loic Wright, Irish Studies Review

The years between 1880 and 1940 were a time of unprecedented literary production and political upheaval in Ireland. It is the era of the 1916 Easter Rising, the Irish Revival, and a time when many major Irish writers - Yeats, Joyce, Beckett, Lady Gregory - profoundly impacted Irish and World Literature. Recent research has uncovered new archives of previously neglected texts and authors. Organized according to multiple categories, ranging from single author to genre and theme, this volume allows readers to imagine multiple ways of re-mapping this crucial period. The book incorporates different, even competing, approaches and interpretations to reflect emerging trends and current debates in contemporary scholarship. As ongoing research in the field of Irish studies discovers new materials and critical strategies for interpreting them, our sense of Irish literary history during this period is constantly shifting. This volume seeks to capture the richness and complexity of the years 1880-1940 for our current moment.

1. Introduction Marjorie Howes
Part I. Revisionary Foundations: 2. The apotheosis of the vernacular: dialects and the Irish revival Brian Ó'Conchubhair
3. Origins of modern Irish poetry, 1880–1922 Alex Davis
4. Theatrical Ireland: new routes from the Abbey Theatre to the Gate Theatre Paige Reynolds
5. Recovery and the ascendancy novel 1880–1932 Vera Kreilkamp
Part II. Revoutionary Forms: 6. Print culture landscapes 1880–1922 Niall Carson
7. Revolutionary lives in the rearview mirror: memoir and autobiography Karen Steele
8. The Hugh Lane controversy and the Irish revival Lucy McDiarmid
9. New Irish women and new women's writing Tina O'Toole
Part III. Major Figures in Transition: 10. Aging Yeats: from fascism to disability Joseph Valente
11. 'I myself delight in Miss Edgeworth's novels': gender, power, and the domestic in Lady Gregory's work Lauren Arrington
12. Synge and disappearing Ireland Gregory Castle
13. Drumcondra modernism: Joyce's suburban aesthetic Enda Duffy
14. London Irish: Wilde, Shaw and Yeats Nicholas Grene
Part IV. Aftermaths and Outcomes: 15. Reimagining realism in post-independence Irish writing Mark Quigley
16. The free state of poetry Lucy Collins
17. Live wires and dead noise: revolutionary communications Emily C. Bloom
18. The dead, the undead, and the half-alive: the transition from narrative plot to formal trope in late modern Irish writing Clair Wills
Part V. Frameworks in Transition: 19. Irish literary criticism during the revival Gerry Smyth
20. Retrospective readings: the rise of global Irish studies Peter Kuch.

Subject Areas: British & Irish history [HBJD1], Literary reference works [DSR], Literary studies: from c 1900 - [DSBH], Literary studies: general [DSB], Literature & literary studies [D]