Michael Wood
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199557660
- eISBN:
- 9780191701726
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199557660.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This is a book about how poetry, seen through the instance of a single poem, seeks to make sense of a turbulent and dangerous world. Poetry must introduce order and shape where there is none, and ...
More
This is a book about how poetry, seen through the instance of a single poem, seeks to make sense of a turbulent and dangerous world. Poetry must introduce order and shape where there is none, and also, in certain crucial cases, remain faithful to the disorder and shapelessness of experience. Many poems manage the first of these tasks; very few manage both. W. B. Yeats ‘Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen’ (written and first published in 1921) is one of them. It is a work which asks what happens when what is taken to be civilization crumbles. What apocalyptic events wait in the wings? What are history's victims (and executors) to do except mock and mourn? Successive chapters investigate the six parts of the poem, connecting them to Yeats' broader poetic practice, his interest in the occult and his changing vision of Irish nationalism; to the work of other poets (Irish, English, Russian German); and to Irish and European history between 1916 (the date of the Easter Uprising in Dublin) and 1923 (the date of the end of the Irish Civil War). Theoretical considerations of the shape and meaning of violence, both political and religious, link the chapters to each other.Less
This is a book about how poetry, seen through the instance of a single poem, seeks to make sense of a turbulent and dangerous world. Poetry must introduce order and shape where there is none, and also, in certain crucial cases, remain faithful to the disorder and shapelessness of experience. Many poems manage the first of these tasks; very few manage both. W. B. Yeats ‘Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen’ (written and first published in 1921) is one of them. It is a work which asks what happens when what is taken to be civilization crumbles. What apocalyptic events wait in the wings? What are history's victims (and executors) to do except mock and mourn? Successive chapters investigate the six parts of the poem, connecting them to Yeats' broader poetic practice, his interest in the occult and his changing vision of Irish nationalism; to the work of other poets (Irish, English, Russian German); and to Irish and European history between 1916 (the date of the Easter Uprising in Dublin) and 1923 (the date of the end of the Irish Civil War). Theoretical considerations of the shape and meaning of violence, both political and religious, link the chapters to each other.
Alan Gillis
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199277094
- eISBN:
- 9780191707483
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199277094.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
The 1930s have never really been considered an epoch within Irish literature, even though this period forms one of the most dominant and fascinating contexts in modern British literature. This book ...
More
The 1930s have never really been considered an epoch within Irish literature, even though this period forms one of the most dominant and fascinating contexts in modern British literature. This book shows that during this time Irish poets confronted political pressures and aesthetic dilemmas which frequently overlapped with those associated with ‘The Auden Generation’. In doing so, it offers a provocative rereading of Irish literary history, but also offers powerful arguments about the way poetry in general is interpreted and understood. In this way, the book redefines our understanding of a frequently neglected period and challenges received notions of both Irish literature and poetic modernism. Moreover, the book offers detailed and vital readings of the major Irish poets of the decade, including original and exciting analyses of Samuel Beckett, Patrick Kavanagh, and Louis MacNeice; with a major re-evaluation of W. B. Yeats.Less
The 1930s have never really been considered an epoch within Irish literature, even though this period forms one of the most dominant and fascinating contexts in modern British literature. This book shows that during this time Irish poets confronted political pressures and aesthetic dilemmas which frequently overlapped with those associated with ‘The Auden Generation’. In doing so, it offers a provocative rereading of Irish literary history, but also offers powerful arguments about the way poetry in general is interpreted and understood. In this way, the book redefines our understanding of a frequently neglected period and challenges received notions of both Irish literature and poetic modernism. Moreover, the book offers detailed and vital readings of the major Irish poets of the decade, including original and exciting analyses of Samuel Beckett, Patrick Kavanagh, and Louis MacNeice; with a major re-evaluation of W. B. Yeats.
Lauren Arrington
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199590575
- eISBN:
- 9780191595523
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199590575.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
This book utilizes new source material and documents that have not previously been analysed with regard to the Abbey Theatre's history in order to reconstruct the political, socio‐religious, and ...
More
This book utilizes new source material and documents that have not previously been analysed with regard to the Abbey Theatre's history in order to reconstruct the political, socio‐religious, and economic forces that exerted pressure on the theatre's programme. These pressures resulted in a complex dynamic: the theatre's directors (including W. B. Yeats and Lady Gregory) publicly defied attempts to censor the Abbey's programme in order to create profitable controversies, while they privately self‐censored plays when they anticipated an opportunity for financial gain. It argues that plays that have not previously been regarded as censored should be recognized as such in light of the political and financial pressures that motivated their suppression. Furthermore, it argues that W. B. Yeats was not an uncompromising champion of artistic freedom, as he is remembered; rather, Yeats was willing to sacrifice the freedom of the artist when he foresaw a chance to ensure the longevity of his theatre.Less
This book utilizes new source material and documents that have not previously been analysed with regard to the Abbey Theatre's history in order to reconstruct the political, socio‐religious, and economic forces that exerted pressure on the theatre's programme. These pressures resulted in a complex dynamic: the theatre's directors (including W. B. Yeats and Lady Gregory) publicly defied attempts to censor the Abbey's programme in order to create profitable controversies, while they privately self‐censored plays when they anticipated an opportunity for financial gain. It argues that plays that have not previously been regarded as censored should be recognized as such in light of the political and financial pressures that motivated their suppression. Furthermore, it argues that W. B. Yeats was not an uncompromising champion of artistic freedom, as he is remembered; rather, Yeats was willing to sacrifice the freedom of the artist when he foresaw a chance to ensure the longevity of his theatre.
Michael Wood
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199557660
- eISBN:
- 9780191701726
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199557660.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This introductory chapter begins with a discussion of the plan of Y. B. Yeats's poem, ‘Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen’, which is the focus of this book. It then sets out the purpose of the book, which ...
More
This introductory chapter begins with a discussion of the plan of Y. B. Yeats's poem, ‘Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen’, which is the focus of this book. It then sets out the purpose of the book, which is to give an account of the way plan and structure meet and clash in the poem, of the tunes they make, and of the ways in which the whole formation connects to the historical world.Less
This introductory chapter begins with a discussion of the plan of Y. B. Yeats's poem, ‘Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen’, which is the focus of this book. It then sets out the purpose of the book, which is to give an account of the way plan and structure meet and clash in the poem, of the tunes they make, and of the ways in which the whole formation connects to the historical world.
Peter McDonald
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199235803
- eISBN:
- 9780191714542
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199235803.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
Do we want to read poetry, or just like having a few poets to talk about? The history of poetry in 20th-century Britain and Ireland is one which ends with the assimilation of successful poets into a ...
More
Do we want to read poetry, or just like having a few poets to talk about? The history of poetry in 20th-century Britain and Ireland is one which ends with the assimilation of successful poets into a media culture. It is also, however, another history, one of form and authority, in which certain poets found modes and pitches of resistance to the seeming inevitabilities of their times. In this history, it is the authority of poetry (and not the media-processed poet) which is at stake in the integrity of poetic form. This book offers a controversial reading of 20th-century British and Irish poetry centred on six figures, all of whom are critics as well as poets: William Butler Yeats, T. S. Eliot, Wystan Hugh Auden, Louis MacNeice, Seamus Heaney, and Geoffrey Hill. Yeats's centrality to 20th-century poetry — and the problem many poets and critics had, or still have, with that centrality — is a major focus of the book. The book argues that it is in the strengths, possibilities, perplexities, and certainties of the poetic form that poetry's authority in a distrustful cultural climate remains most seriously alive.Less
Do we want to read poetry, or just like having a few poets to talk about? The history of poetry in 20th-century Britain and Ireland is one which ends with the assimilation of successful poets into a media culture. It is also, however, another history, one of form and authority, in which certain poets found modes and pitches of resistance to the seeming inevitabilities of their times. In this history, it is the authority of poetry (and not the media-processed poet) which is at stake in the integrity of poetic form. This book offers a controversial reading of 20th-century British and Irish poetry centred on six figures, all of whom are critics as well as poets: William Butler Yeats, T. S. Eliot, Wystan Hugh Auden, Louis MacNeice, Seamus Heaney, and Geoffrey Hill. Yeats's centrality to 20th-century poetry — and the problem many poets and critics had, or still have, with that centrality — is a major focus of the book. The book argues that it is in the strengths, possibilities, perplexities, and certainties of the poetic form that poetry's authority in a distrustful cultural climate remains most seriously alive.
Joseph M. Hassett
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199582907
- eISBN:
- 9780191723216
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199582907.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
Seeking refuge in marriage to George Hyde‐Lees posed a potentially lethal threat to Yeats's poetic enterprise. Because the essence of the courtly love poem was its praise of an unattainable woman, ...
More
Seeking refuge in marriage to George Hyde‐Lees posed a potentially lethal threat to Yeats's poetic enterprise. Because the essence of the courtly love poem was its praise of an unattainable woman, marriage and sexual satisfaction threatened to cut off the source of inspiration. Yeats found his way out of the inspirational impasse, but this time it took what he described as ‘something very like a miraculous intervention.’ To relieve her husband's post‐marriage gloom, George feigned automatic writing, but then, she maintained, a superior force took over. The fascinated Yeats pressed her into five years of intensive communication with the unknown spirits. George's Pythia‐like exchanges with the spirits answered the question whether sexual success would still the voice of the Muse. Au contraire, they said, ‘What is important is that the desire of the medium and her desire for your desire be satisfied’ because ‘there cannot be intellectual desire…without sexual & emotional satisfaction’ and ‘without intellectual desire there is no force — or truth especially truth because truth is intensity.’ In other words, whereas sexual fulfillment was inconsistent with the courtly lover's access to inspiration, it was the sine qua non of revelation from George's instructors. Chapter 5 situates the automatic writing and its product, the extraordinary philosophical, historical and aesthetic essay, A Vision, in the context of Yeats's pursuit of the Muse, and examines the way in which the great poems of his maturity reflect the influence of George Yeats as oracle and Muse.Less
Seeking refuge in marriage to George Hyde‐Lees posed a potentially lethal threat to Yeats's poetic enterprise. Because the essence of the courtly love poem was its praise of an unattainable woman, marriage and sexual satisfaction threatened to cut off the source of inspiration. Yeats found his way out of the inspirational impasse, but this time it took what he described as ‘something very like a miraculous intervention.’ To relieve her husband's post‐marriage gloom, George feigned automatic writing, but then, she maintained, a superior force took over. The fascinated Yeats pressed her into five years of intensive communication with the unknown spirits. George's Pythia‐like exchanges with the spirits answered the question whether sexual success would still the voice of the Muse. Au contraire, they said, ‘What is important is that the desire of the medium and her desire for your desire be satisfied’ because ‘there cannot be intellectual desire…without sexual & emotional satisfaction’ and ‘without intellectual desire there is no force — or truth especially truth because truth is intensity.’ In other words, whereas sexual fulfillment was inconsistent with the courtly lover's access to inspiration, it was the sine qua non of revelation from George's instructors. Chapter 5 situates the automatic writing and its product, the extraordinary philosophical, historical and aesthetic essay, A Vision, in the context of Yeats's pursuit of the Muse, and examines the way in which the great poems of his maturity reflect the influence of George Yeats as oracle and Muse.
John Brannigan
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748638833
- eISBN:
- 9780748651801
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748638833.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
This book presents a radical re-reading of the cultural history of the Irish state, by demonstrating through original historical research and insightful new readings of key literary and artistic ...
More
This book presents a radical re-reading of the cultural history of the Irish state, by demonstrating through original historical research and insightful new readings of key literary and artistic works that race has been central to the ways in which modern Ireland has defined itself. It examines the tropes of racial identity and racist distinction that underpin modern expressions of Irishness, and shows how a persistent concern with racial ideologies can be traced through twentieth-century Irish culture. In this study, James Joyce's Ulysses is read anew in the context of the gathering of the Irish Race Congress in Paris, and the formation of the Irish Free State in 1922. The works of Liam O'Flaherty, Samuel Beckett, W.B. Yeats and Jack Yeats are shown to engage critically with anthropological representations of ‘the Irish face’. The book examines a wide range of mid-century fiction as part of a public discourse about ‘foreign bodies’, and goes on to examine the critical conversations taking place in the 1960s and 1970s about figurations of blackness in Irish culture. A provocative revision of modern Irish cultural history, this book makes challenging interventions in Irish studies, literary and cultural studies, and critical race studies.Less
This book presents a radical re-reading of the cultural history of the Irish state, by demonstrating through original historical research and insightful new readings of key literary and artistic works that race has been central to the ways in which modern Ireland has defined itself. It examines the tropes of racial identity and racist distinction that underpin modern expressions of Irishness, and shows how a persistent concern with racial ideologies can be traced through twentieth-century Irish culture. In this study, James Joyce's Ulysses is read anew in the context of the gathering of the Irish Race Congress in Paris, and the formation of the Irish Free State in 1922. The works of Liam O'Flaherty, Samuel Beckett, W.B. Yeats and Jack Yeats are shown to engage critically with anthropological representations of ‘the Irish face’. The book examines a wide range of mid-century fiction as part of a public discourse about ‘foreign bodies’, and goes on to examine the critical conversations taking place in the 1960s and 1970s about figurations of blackness in Irish culture. A provocative revision of modern Irish cultural history, this book makes challenging interventions in Irish studies, literary and cultural studies, and critical race studies.
Nicholas Allen
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199212989
- eISBN:
- 9780191594205
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199212989.003.0002
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Prose and Writers: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The relationship between the study of classical culture and the formation of empire is well established. This chapter traces alternate spaces of engagement within the decolonizing public sphere in ...
More
The relationship between the study of classical culture and the formation of empire is well established. This chapter traces alternate spaces of engagement within the decolonizing public sphere in Ireland. It focuses on a range of twentieth‐century writers, including James Joyce, William Butler Yeats, Louis MacNeice, Michael Longley, and Seamus Heaney. Specific focus is given to the ways in which contemporary events, including independence, partition and state formation, have been represented through images of the ancient past in a form of vernacular classicism. Ideas of literary and political language, from the epic to the republic, took revolutionary form in the modernist works of Joyce and Yeats. For the subsequent generations of MacNeice, Longley, and Heaney, the classical world has allowed culture to engage with, and question, the violent legacies of colonization.Less
The relationship between the study of classical culture and the formation of empire is well established. This chapter traces alternate spaces of engagement within the decolonizing public sphere in Ireland. It focuses on a range of twentieth‐century writers, including James Joyce, William Butler Yeats, Louis MacNeice, Michael Longley, and Seamus Heaney. Specific focus is given to the ways in which contemporary events, including independence, partition and state formation, have been represented through images of the ancient past in a form of vernacular classicism. Ideas of literary and political language, from the epic to the republic, took revolutionary form in the modernist works of Joyce and Yeats. For the subsequent generations of MacNeice, Longley, and Heaney, the classical world has allowed culture to engage with, and question, the violent legacies of colonization.
Oren Izenberg
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691144832
- eISBN:
- 9781400836529
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691144832.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This book explores a set of interdependent problems in the history, theory, and politics of recent Anglo-American poetry while offering a challenge and an alternative to a nearly unanimous ...
More
This book explores a set of interdependent problems in the history, theory, and politics of recent Anglo-American poetry while offering a challenge and an alternative to a nearly unanimous literary–historical consensus that divides poetry into two warring camps—post-Romantic and postmodern; symbolist and constructivist; traditionalist and avant-garde. The book advocates a shift of emphasis, from “poems” as objects or occasions for experience to “poetry” as an occasion for reestablishing or revealing the most basic unit of social life and for securing the most fundamental object of moral regard. The book considers Language poetry as well as the work of William Butler Yeats, George Oppen, and Frank O'Hara—poets who seek ways to make their poetic thinking yield accounts of personhood that are at once minimal and universal.Less
This book explores a set of interdependent problems in the history, theory, and politics of recent Anglo-American poetry while offering a challenge and an alternative to a nearly unanimous literary–historical consensus that divides poetry into two warring camps—post-Romantic and postmodern; symbolist and constructivist; traditionalist and avant-garde. The book advocates a shift of emphasis, from “poems” as objects or occasions for experience to “poetry” as an occasion for reestablishing or revealing the most basic unit of social life and for securing the most fundamental object of moral regard. The book considers Language poetry as well as the work of William Butler Yeats, George Oppen, and Frank O'Hara—poets who seek ways to make their poetic thinking yield accounts of personhood that are at once minimal and universal.
Oren Izenberg
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691144832
- eISBN:
- 9781400836529
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691144832.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter examines the philosophical origins and political urgencies of William Butler Yeats's demand for “perfection” and “completeness.” It begins with a discussion of Yeats's conception of ...
More
This chapter examines the philosophical origins and political urgencies of William Butler Yeats's demand for “perfection” and “completeness.” It begins with a discussion of Yeats's conception of extreme and paradoxical theories of poetic agency and why such an excessive account of poetic agency might have appeared necessary in his historical situation. It then considers Yeats's early and abiding commitment to the esoteric roots of symbolism and his late interest in eugenics, both of which addressed the local project of forging a counterfactual identity. It also shows how Yeats's poetry bridges the gap between the perfected Ireland he envisioned and the degraded one he conjured. The chapter concludes with an analysis of Yeats's explicit rebellion, not against his universalist notion of personhood, but against his own will to poetic mastery.Less
This chapter examines the philosophical origins and political urgencies of William Butler Yeats's demand for “perfection” and “completeness.” It begins with a discussion of Yeats's conception of extreme and paradoxical theories of poetic agency and why such an excessive account of poetic agency might have appeared necessary in his historical situation. It then considers Yeats's early and abiding commitment to the esoteric roots of symbolism and his late interest in eugenics, both of which addressed the local project of forging a counterfactual identity. It also shows how Yeats's poetry bridges the gap between the perfected Ireland he envisioned and the degraded one he conjured. The chapter concludes with an analysis of Yeats's explicit rebellion, not against his universalist notion of personhood, but against his own will to poetic mastery.
Ben Levitas
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199253432
- eISBN:
- 9780191719196
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199253432.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
The role of the theatre of the Irish literary revival in the politics of identity is a question central not only to the study of Irish theatre and Irish cultural nationalism, but to the broader ...
More
The role of the theatre of the Irish literary revival in the politics of identity is a question central not only to the study of Irish theatre and Irish cultural nationalism, but to the broader dynamics of cultural politics at the beginning of the 20th century. This book pursues the complex relationship through a panoramic study of Irish drama and the nationalist debate 1890-1916. It demonstrates that close scrutiny of precise contexts are required if the importance of theatrical text and events are to be thoroughly evaluated. Extending the range of material examined beyond canonical works, and beyond Dublin to the influence of Cork and Ulster, it tackles many neglected and forgotten works which through reconsideration of their reception are given new force. The lesser lights of the Irish revival are also seen to illuminate anew writers such as W. B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, and J. M. Synge. The evolution of cultural and political nationalist groups such as Irish Ireland, the Gaelic League, and Sinn Fein is similarly examined to reveal a shifting terrain of nationalist opinion disturbed by issues of class, gender, and generation. This book concludes that Ireland's theatre had a pivotal role to play in the controversies of its time and in the coming revolution.Less
The role of the theatre of the Irish literary revival in the politics of identity is a question central not only to the study of Irish theatre and Irish cultural nationalism, but to the broader dynamics of cultural politics at the beginning of the 20th century. This book pursues the complex relationship through a panoramic study of Irish drama and the nationalist debate 1890-1916. It demonstrates that close scrutiny of precise contexts are required if the importance of theatrical text and events are to be thoroughly evaluated. Extending the range of material examined beyond canonical works, and beyond Dublin to the influence of Cork and Ulster, it tackles many neglected and forgotten works which through reconsideration of their reception are given new force. The lesser lights of the Irish revival are also seen to illuminate anew writers such as W. B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, and J. M. Synge. The evolution of cultural and political nationalist groups such as Irish Ireland, the Gaelic League, and Sinn Fein is similarly examined to reveal a shifting terrain of nationalist opinion disturbed by issues of class, gender, and generation. This book concludes that Ireland's theatre had a pivotal role to play in the controversies of its time and in the coming revolution.
Kathleen Riley
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199534487
- eISBN:
- 9780191715945
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199534487.003.0009
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter examines the philosophical appropriation of Euripides' Herakles by the Modernist writers George Cabot Lodge, W. B. Yeats, and Frank Wedekind. It shows how dramatic interest in the tragic ...
More
This chapter examines the philosophical appropriation of Euripides' Herakles by the Modernist writers George Cabot Lodge, W. B. Yeats, and Frank Wedekind. It shows how dramatic interest in the tragic Herakles shifted from his latent psychosis to his latent divinity, his uniquely ambivalent status as theios aner. As a consequence, the madness and filicide gathered significance not as manifestations of the Heraklean psychology, but because they anticipated and affirmed a superhuman destiny. Lodge, Yeats and Wedekindconceived of Herakles as the archetypal Nietzschean Superman, reasoning the madness and murders as an inescapable precondition of self-divinity.Less
This chapter examines the philosophical appropriation of Euripides' Herakles by the Modernist writers George Cabot Lodge, W. B. Yeats, and Frank Wedekind. It shows how dramatic interest in the tragic Herakles shifted from his latent psychosis to his latent divinity, his uniquely ambivalent status as theios aner. As a consequence, the madness and filicide gathered significance not as manifestations of the Heraklean psychology, but because they anticipated and affirmed a superhuman destiny. Lodge, Yeats and Wedekindconceived of Herakles as the archetypal Nietzschean Superman, reasoning the madness and murders as an inescapable precondition of self-divinity.
BEN LEVITAS
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199253432
- eISBN:
- 9780191719196
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199253432.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
This chapter examines the early debates over the need for an Irish national theatre. It suggests that the crisis surrounding the Parnellite split of 1890 and death of C. S. Parnell in 1891 was key. ...
More
This chapter examines the early debates over the need for an Irish national theatre. It suggests that the crisis surrounding the Parnellite split of 1890 and death of C. S. Parnell in 1891 was key. In the 1880s, melodrama written by Hubert O'Grady and J. W. Whitbread resonated with Nationalist optimism: its continued popularity should be associated with Irish Parliamentary Party momentum. However, the complexity of 1890s divisions saw a Parnellite minority adopt a notionally ‘modern’ wave of literary experiment led by Yeats, and analysed by Shaw. Ibsen was also an important touchstone. Newspapers like United Ireland became forums for cultural political debate also manifest in the emergence of the National Literary Society (1892) and the Gaelic League (1893). Such debates were alert both to the cultural dimension of politics and to the social complexity of an Ireland that had begun to consider issues of class and gender.Less
This chapter examines the early debates over the need for an Irish national theatre. It suggests that the crisis surrounding the Parnellite split of 1890 and death of C. S. Parnell in 1891 was key. In the 1880s, melodrama written by Hubert O'Grady and J. W. Whitbread resonated with Nationalist optimism: its continued popularity should be associated with Irish Parliamentary Party momentum. However, the complexity of 1890s divisions saw a Parnellite minority adopt a notionally ‘modern’ wave of literary experiment led by Yeats, and analysed by Shaw. Ibsen was also an important touchstone. Newspapers like United Ireland became forums for cultural political debate also manifest in the emergence of the National Literary Society (1892) and the Gaelic League (1893). Such debates were alert both to the cultural dimension of politics and to the social complexity of an Ireland that had begun to consider issues of class and gender.
BEN LEVITAS
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199253432
- eISBN:
- 9780191719196
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199253432.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
This chapter examines the cultural-political allegiances from the centenary of the 1798 rising to the founding of the Irish National Theatre Society. During 1899-1901, the Irish Literary Theatre led ...
More
This chapter examines the cultural-political allegiances from the centenary of the 1798 rising to the founding of the Irish National Theatre Society. During 1899-1901, the Irish Literary Theatre led by W. B. Yeats, Edward Martyn, and George Moore lived out its influential span. Tracking political circumstances, it is argued that while the ILT began life in debt to the constructive Unionism of Horace Plunkett and the Daily Express, the polarising influence of the Boer War took it into more nationalist territory. Although publications such as Moran's the Leader kept sectarian fires lit, the influence of socialist thinkers Connolly and Ryan on Arthur Griffith mitigated the United Irishman's nationalist conservatism (and anti-Semitism) long enough for an embrace of the theatre movement. This seemed confirmed when the ILT collapsed, to be followed by the INTS in 1902 and its fabled production of Cathleen ni Houlihan.Less
This chapter examines the cultural-political allegiances from the centenary of the 1798 rising to the founding of the Irish National Theatre Society. During 1899-1901, the Irish Literary Theatre led by W. B. Yeats, Edward Martyn, and George Moore lived out its influential span. Tracking political circumstances, it is argued that while the ILT began life in debt to the constructive Unionism of Horace Plunkett and the Daily Express, the polarising influence of the Boer War took it into more nationalist territory. Although publications such as Moran's the Leader kept sectarian fires lit, the influence of socialist thinkers Connolly and Ryan on Arthur Griffith mitigated the United Irishman's nationalist conservatism (and anti-Semitism) long enough for an embrace of the theatre movement. This seemed confirmed when the ILT collapsed, to be followed by the INTS in 1902 and its fabled production of Cathleen ni Houlihan.
BEN LEVITAS
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199253432
- eISBN:
- 9780191719196
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199253432.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
This chapter examines the fracture of the theatre movement and cultural nationalist alliances in the post-Boer period. Yeats, with financial backing from Annie Horniman, was able to set up the INTS ...
More
This chapter examines the fracture of the theatre movement and cultural nationalist alliances in the post-Boer period. Yeats, with financial backing from Annie Horniman, was able to set up the INTS in the Abbey Theatre and establish the organisation as a professional company. Cultural nationalists, particularly Griffith and Moran, attacked the theatre for rejecting propagandist imperatives; however, their attack on Synge reveals a conservative nationalist agenda also evident in their anti-Semitic support for the Limerick Pogrom of 1903. Beyond the apparent oppositions, however, a ‘union of Sceptics’, often in left-literati combinations, operated to suggest alternatives. Journals such as Dana, the Nationist, and the National Democrat; theatre groups such as the Theatre of Ireland and the Ulster Literary Theatre; and the range of material available at the Abbey from Colum, Boyle and Lady Gregory demonstrate a broad spectrum of opinion.Less
This chapter examines the fracture of the theatre movement and cultural nationalist alliances in the post-Boer period. Yeats, with financial backing from Annie Horniman, was able to set up the INTS in the Abbey Theatre and establish the organisation as a professional company. Cultural nationalists, particularly Griffith and Moran, attacked the theatre for rejecting propagandist imperatives; however, their attack on Synge reveals a conservative nationalist agenda also evident in their anti-Semitic support for the Limerick Pogrom of 1903. Beyond the apparent oppositions, however, a ‘union of Sceptics’, often in left-literati combinations, operated to suggest alternatives. Journals such as Dana, the Nationist, and the National Democrat; theatre groups such as the Theatre of Ireland and the Ulster Literary Theatre; and the range of material available at the Abbey from Colum, Boyle and Lady Gregory demonstrate a broad spectrum of opinion.
BEN LEVITAS
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199253432
- eISBN:
- 9780191719196
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199253432.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
This chapter considers closely the debut of J. M. Synge's The Playboy of the Western World and the ensuing ‘riots’. It emphasises Synge's radical credentials and argues that Synge's Playboy was a ...
More
This chapter considers closely the debut of J. M. Synge's The Playboy of the Western World and the ensuing ‘riots’. It emphasises Synge's radical credentials and argues that Synge's Playboy was a calculated provocation. With the greatest offence deferred until the final act, the riot is considered as Synge's intention, producing an avant-garde event rather than simply a play. The following controversy, including Yeats's decision of the theatre to reinforce the play's run with police presence and prosecutions, is understood as polarising opinion. However, the division was not as absolute as has previously been portrayed; northern republicans in the Dungannon Clubs found the issue petty; language campaigners found it irrelevant; and some, such as George Roberts and Tom Koehler, recognised Synge as a writer that might revivify Irish parochialism with the irreverence of nascent European modernism.Less
This chapter considers closely the debut of J. M. Synge's The Playboy of the Western World and the ensuing ‘riots’. It emphasises Synge's radical credentials and argues that Synge's Playboy was a calculated provocation. With the greatest offence deferred until the final act, the riot is considered as Synge's intention, producing an avant-garde event rather than simply a play. The following controversy, including Yeats's decision of the theatre to reinforce the play's run with police presence and prosecutions, is understood as polarising opinion. However, the division was not as absolute as has previously been portrayed; northern republicans in the Dungannon Clubs found the issue petty; language campaigners found it irrelevant; and some, such as George Roberts and Tom Koehler, recognised Synge as a writer that might revivify Irish parochialism with the irreverence of nascent European modernism.
BEN LEVITAS
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199253432
- eISBN:
- 9780191719196
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199253432.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
This chapter reassesses the role of the theatre in pre-Revolutionary Ireland. Considering Yeats's ‘Man and the Echo’, it argues that the theatre was central to the Irish revival. Parnellism provided ...
More
This chapter reassesses the role of the theatre in pre-Revolutionary Ireland. Considering Yeats's ‘Man and the Echo’, it argues that the theatre was central to the Irish revival. Parnellism provided an important opening for cultural nationalism because it looked forward to ripening opinion rather than established consensus. Nationalism contained conflicts along lines of class, gender, and generation, all revealed in theatre as much as in the activities of Irish Socialist and Feminists; and the regional development of theatre in Cork and Ulster is emphasised. The model of Ireland as lost to tribal opposition is rejected; left-literati alliances were indicators of resistance to bourgeois nationalist imperatives. Republicanism proved open to such modernist lessons, but while Synge is presented as influentially provocative, his creative anxiety should not be reduced to revolutionary provocation alone.Less
This chapter reassesses the role of the theatre in pre-Revolutionary Ireland. Considering Yeats's ‘Man and the Echo’, it argues that the theatre was central to the Irish revival. Parnellism provided an important opening for cultural nationalism because it looked forward to ripening opinion rather than established consensus. Nationalism contained conflicts along lines of class, gender, and generation, all revealed in theatre as much as in the activities of Irish Socialist and Feminists; and the regional development of theatre in Cork and Ulster is emphasised. The model of Ireland as lost to tribal opposition is rejected; left-literati alliances were indicators of resistance to bourgeois nationalist imperatives. Republicanism proved open to such modernist lessons, but while Synge is presented as influentially provocative, his creative anxiety should not be reduced to revolutionary provocation alone.
Herbert F. Tucker
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199232987
- eISBN:
- 9780191716447
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199232987.003.0011
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
Having rescued the epic muse from the usages of the novel, heroic myth declined towards the fin de siècle into a Victorian museum collectible. The characteristic form for epic after 1870 became the ...
More
Having rescued the epic muse from the usages of the novel, heroic myth declined towards the fin de siècle into a Victorian museum collectible. The characteristic form for epic after 1870 became the anthology of tales, organized by deep, reflexive belief in civilized progress. Classical antiquity (Lewis Morris), Ireland and the South Seas (de Vere, Ferguson, Domett), the world's religions (Owen Meredith, Edwin Arnold), natural history and English history too (Blind, Palgrave) — all found place in epics whose plots were folded into the meta-narrative of a progressive evolution that had produced imperial modernity as its crowning vantage. Against this escalation of claims greater poets of the day, Morris and Swinburne, pitched their epic dissent, maintaining in plots of singular catastrophe tragedy's resistance to assimilation by the Gilded Age, and stubbornly enshrining the scandal of tragic joy where the newcomer Yeats might recruit it for fresh political purposes. The epic logic of eclectic retrospect meanwhile bred a scholarly subgenre in comprehensive, multi-volumed literary, national, and anthropological histories.Less
Having rescued the epic muse from the usages of the novel, heroic myth declined towards the fin de siècle into a Victorian museum collectible. The characteristic form for epic after 1870 became the anthology of tales, organized by deep, reflexive belief in civilized progress. Classical antiquity (Lewis Morris), Ireland and the South Seas (de Vere, Ferguson, Domett), the world's religions (Owen Meredith, Edwin Arnold), natural history and English history too (Blind, Palgrave) — all found place in epics whose plots were folded into the meta-narrative of a progressive evolution that had produced imperial modernity as its crowning vantage. Against this escalation of claims greater poets of the day, Morris and Swinburne, pitched their epic dissent, maintaining in plots of singular catastrophe tragedy's resistance to assimilation by the Gilded Age, and stubbornly enshrining the scandal of tragic joy where the newcomer Yeats might recruit it for fresh political purposes. The epic logic of eclectic retrospect meanwhile bred a scholarly subgenre in comprehensive, multi-volumed literary, national, and anthropological histories.
R. F. Foster
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197264249
- eISBN:
- 9780191734045
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197264249.003.0012
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This lecture traces W. B. Yeats' preoccupation with the changing forms of death throughout his life, from his fin-de-siécle love-poetry to his poems of death. These poems of death were linked to his ...
More
This lecture traces W. B. Yeats' preoccupation with the changing forms of death throughout his life, from his fin-de-siécle love-poetry to his poems of death. These poems of death were linked to his interest in Celtic legend, Irish intellectual influences and conjunctions, and magical ritual and psychic research. The lecture considers Yeats' approach to death in his later work, concluding with his creation of a structured canon of work in the light of his own death and the work that he wrote on his deathbed.Less
This lecture traces W. B. Yeats' preoccupation with the changing forms of death throughout his life, from his fin-de-siécle love-poetry to his poems of death. These poems of death were linked to his interest in Celtic legend, Irish intellectual influences and conjunctions, and magical ritual and psychic research. The lecture considers Yeats' approach to death in his later work, concluding with his creation of a structured canon of work in the light of his own death and the work that he wrote on his deathbed.
Daniel G. Williams
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748622054
- eISBN:
- 9780748651993
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748622054.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, African-American Literature
This concluding chapter reviews the discussions of the previous chapters, looking at the conservationist ethnic movements that challenged the idea of common national cultures in the United States and ...
More
This concluding chapter reviews the discussions of the previous chapters, looking at the conservationist ethnic movements that challenged the idea of common national cultures in the United States and the United Kingdom. It determines that Matthew Arnold and William Dean Howells's writings contain the resources for the renegotiation of the conception of ‘culture’ found in the writings of W. E. B. Du Bois and W. B. Yeats.Less
This concluding chapter reviews the discussions of the previous chapters, looking at the conservationist ethnic movements that challenged the idea of common national cultures in the United States and the United Kingdom. It determines that Matthew Arnold and William Dean Howells's writings contain the resources for the renegotiation of the conception of ‘culture’ found in the writings of W. E. B. Du Bois and W. B. Yeats.
