Elizabeth Bowen and the art of visuality

This thesis is the first sustained assessment of Elizabeth Bowen’s writing from a visual perspective. By first compiling a visual biography of the author, I argue that Bowen’s responsiveness to art, her relationships with artists, and her knowledge of modern and traditional aesthetics are formative influences on her work. Investigating her assertion that she was a “visual writer,” my discussion develops into an examination of her technique of “verbal painting” through which she reinvents traditional visual modes as a personal modernist idiom. Close textual analysis of Bowen’s fictions forms the dominant methodology of this thesis and facilitates my delineation of her engagement with the Futurist and Surrealist aesthetics in addition to broader aspects of her visuality, including her treatment of the “vividly visual” dream-state to the distinct ocularcentricity of her writing. Ultimately, this thesis seeks to advance our knowledge of Bowen’s visual method and to offer a new approach in which to nuance our understanding of her modernism

Ó Sheán Clárach Mac Domhnaill go dtí Nioclás Tóibín: traidisiún na hamhránaíochta ins na Déise

Féachann an tráchtas seo le solas a chaitheamh ar an amhránaíocht mar a chleachtaítí agus mar a chleactaítear fós i gcontae Phort Láirge í. Ardaítear ann ceisteanna a bhaineann le seachadadh agus le sealbhú na n-amhrán I measc an phobail i gceantar na nDéise sa tréimhse c.1750-1960, ó aimsir Sheáin Chláraigh go dtí an ré sin ina raibh Nioclás Tóibín, ‘rí-amhránaí Éireann’, ar bhuaic a réime. Cuirtear spéis anseo i bhfás agus i dteacht chun cinn an Rómánsachais agus (a leathchúpla) an náisiúnachais ar Mhór-roinn na hEorpa in earr an 18ú haois agus amach san 19ú haois; ar thionchar na ngluaiseachtaí sin i bhfad ó bhaile ar Éirinn i gcoitinne san aimsir úd; orthu sin a raibh díolamaí amhrán á gcur in eagar acu in Éirinn san 19ú agus amach san 20ú haois; agus, ar deireadh, ar an stór amhrán mar atá le clos inniu I measc na ndaoine i nGaeltacht na Déise.