Sketches of Irish character /

Mode of access: Internet.

'A piece of fine meshwork': the intertwining fiction of Philip Roth and Edna O'Brien

This thesis comprises a comparative analysis of the works the Irish author Edna O’Brien and her contemporary and friend, the Jewish-American author Philip Roth. It investigates the striking biographical, textual and stylistic symmetries between two writers from very different cultures and literary traditions. The thesis begins with the, until now, undetected intertextual nexuses between Roth’s fiction and O’Brien’s. These allusions significantly alter the readings of a number of their novels, while at the same time indicating wider transatlantic frames of reference now apparent in their work. O’Brien has, since the beginning of her career, been in frequent correspondence with all of the pre-eminent Jewish-American authors of her time, and her work conducts a dialogue with key Jewish-American texts. Conversely, Roth’s fiction���like O’Brien’s, obviously indebted to Joyce—has frequently alluded to other seminal Irish authors. The literary and personal relationship of Roth and O’Brien symbolize myriad links between Jewish and Irish literary cultures. In O’Brien’s (and wider Irish) fiction, the Jew is often positioned as an exotic but dangerous “Other”. Equally, throughout the Jewish canon Irish Catholics are frequently employed as foils. Roth and O’Brien investigate difference by depicting relationships that cross these boundaries. Through understanding the complex interrelations at play between the fiction of Roth and O’Brien, and between their work and that of a wider pantheon of Irish and American writers, this thesis will reposition both as transnational authors while developing a culturally sensitive, textually nuanced account of their transatlantic literary relations.

Tipperary, by Frank Delaney: a reading of the rewriting of history of Ireland

O objetivo da presente pesquisa é o de discutir a reescrita da história da Irlanda, mais especificamente aspectos relacionados à construção da identidade nacional e de marcas da tradição, a partir da leitura do romance Tipperary, de Frank Delaney. Publicada em 2007, essa obra aborda de forma singular as querelas sobre identidade nacional, nacionalismo, passado, memória, e seus personagens principais e a trama estão significativamente ligados ao contexto político-social da história da Irlanda. Nessa reconstrução da história, o passado é revisitado através de diferentes pontos de vista. Nossa atenção estará voltada para a seleção de elementos/momentos da história do país que ganham foco na narrativa, e as possíveis repercussões deste processo. Além disso, nos concentraremos na questão das tênues fronteiras entre história e ficção, ou seja, as fronteiras pouco delimitadas entre o discurso histórico e o discurso ficcional. Na escrita da história em Tipperary, Delaney aborda questões relativas a mitos, lendas e tradições como importantes fatores de identidade nacional em uma Irlanda que emerge como uma nação independente. No romance em questão, podemos observar como história e memória se unem na jornada do protagonista, em sua empreitada de narrar a história de sua vida e de seu país

Mícheál Coimín agus a shaothar

Is é a chuirim romham a dhéanamh sa tráchtas seo ná eagar a chur ar shaothar liteartha Mhíchíl Coimín; file agus údar próis a bhí ag saothrú na litríochta i gCill Chorcoráin, Contae an Chláir san ochtú haois déag. D’éag sé sa bhliain 1760 nuair a bhí sé beagnach 90 bliain d’aois. Is féidir a rá go bhfuil an Coimíneach, ó thaobh chanóin litríocht na Gaeilge de i measc na mionscríbhneoirí, agus níl aon dabht faoi ach go bhfuil an-chuid de léitheoirí na Gaeilge sa lá atá inniu ann dall ar a chuid scríbhneoireachta. Tá cáil air mar údar ‘Laoi Oisín i dTír na n-Óg’ ach mar a léireofar sa tráchtas seo, tá gach cuma ar an scéal nárbh é a scríobh. Tá againn óna pheann dornán beag dánta agus dhá scéal rómánsaíochta (‘Eachtra Thoroilbh Mhic Stairn’ agus ‘Eachtra a Thriúr Mac’) a scríobh sé nuair a bhí an traidisiún sin próis ar an dé deiridh. Níl aon chuid dá shaothar ar fáil in eagráin a shásódh léitheoirí an lae inniu ná na critéir scolártha atá i bhfeidhm anois. Níor tháinig aon lámhscríbhinn, i lámh an Choimínigh, anuas chugainn agus dá bhrí sin bhí dúshlán áirithe ag baint leis an bpróiseas eagarthóireachta. Sa tráchtas rinne mé an suirbhé is iomláine go dtí seo ar a shaothar i dtraidisiún na lámhscríbhinní agus ar na scríobhaithe a rinne é a sheachadadh. Bhí sé mar aidhm agam teacht ar na lámhscríbhinní is údarásaí sa traidisiún d’fhonn eagráin a réiteach a bheadh dílis dá bhunshaothar. Chomh maith leis sin tabharfar cuntas ar a bheatha agus ar a chúlra liteartha, agus déanfar iniúchadh criticiúil ar a shaothar próis agus fileata.

Romanticism and Blackwood's Magazine:'An Unprecedented Phenomenon'

Romanticism and Blackwood's Magazine is inspired by the ongoing critical fascination with Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, and the burgeoning recognition of its centrality to the Romantic age. Though the magazine itself was published continuously for well over a century and a half, this volume concentrates specifically on those years when William Blackwood was at the helm, beginning with his founding of the magazine in 1817 and closing with his death in 1834. These were the years when, as Samuel Taylor Coleridge put it in 1832, Blackwood's reigned as 'an unprecedented Phenomenon in the world of letters.' The magazine placed itself at the centre of the emerging mass media, commented decisively on all the major political and cultural issues that shaped the Romantic movement, and published some of the leading writers of the day, including Coleridge, Thomas De Quincey, John Galt, Felicia Hemans, James Hogg, Walter Scott, and Mary Shelley.

'This much-needed volume reminds us not only why Blackwood's was the most influential periodical publication of the time, but also how its writers, writings, and critical agendas continue to shape so many of the scholarly concerns of Romantic studies in the twenty-first century.' - Charles Mahoney, Associate Professor, University of Connecticut, USA

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Notes on Contributors
'A character so various, and yet so indisputably its own': A Passage to Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine; R.Morrison & D.S.Roberts
PART I: BLACKWOOD'S AND THE PERIODICAL PRESS
Beginning Blackwood's: The Right Mix of Dulce and Ùtile; P.Flynn
John Gibson Lockhart and Blackwood's: Shaping the Romantic Periodical Press; T.Richardson
From Gluttony to Justified Sinning: Confessional Writing in Blackwood's and the London Magazine; D.Higgins
Camaraderie and Conflict: De Quincey and Wilson on Enemy Lines; R.Morrison
Selling Blackwood's Magazine, 1817-1834; D.Finkelstein
PART II: BLACKWOOD'S CULTURE AND CRITICISM
Blackwood's 'Personalities'; T.Mole
Communal Reception, Mary Shelley, and the 'Blackwood's School' of Criticism; N.Mason
Blackwoodian Allusion and the Culture of Miscellaneity; D.Stewart
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine in the Scientific Culture of Early Nineteenth-Century Edinburgh; W.Christie
The Art and Science of Politics in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, c. 1817-1841; D.Kelly
Prosing Poetry: Blackwood's and Generic Transposition, 1820-1840; J.Camlot
PART III: BLACKWOOD'S FICTIONS
Blackwood's and the Boundaries of the Short Story; T.Killick
The Edinburgh of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine and James Hogg's Fiction; G.Hughes
'The Taste for Violence in Blackwood's Magazine'; M.Schoenfield
PART IV: BLACKWOOD'S AT HOME
John Wilson and Regency Authorship; R.Cronin
John Wilson and Sport; J.Strachan
William Maginn and the Blackwood's 'Preface' of 1826; D.E.Latané, Jr.
All Work and All Play: Felicia Hemans's Edinburgh Noctes; N.Sweet
PART V: BLACKWOOD'S ABROAD
Imagining India in Early Blackwood's; D.S.Roberts
Tales of the Colonies: Blackwood's, Provincialism, and British Interests Abroad; A.Jarrells
Selected Bibliography
Index

ROBERT MORRISON is Queen's National Scholar at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. His book, The English Opium-Eater: A Biography of Thomas De Quincey was a finalist for the James Tait Black Prize. He has edited writings by Jane Austen, Leigh Hunt, Thomas De Quincey, and John Polidori.
DANIEL SANJIV ROBERTS is Reader in English at Queen's University Belfast, UK. His publications include a monograph, Revisionary Gleam: De Quincey, Coleridge, and the High Romantic Argument (2000), and major critical editions of Thomas De Quincey's Autobiographic Sketches and Robert Southey's The Curse of Kehama; the latter was cited as a Distinguished Scholarly Edition by the MLA. He is currently working on an edition of Charles Johnstone's novel The History of Arsaces, Prince of Betlis for the Early Irish Fiction series.