Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction A history of the Irish novel, 1665–2010
- Interchapter 1 Virtue Rewarded; or, the Irish Princess
- Chapter 1 Beginnings and endings
- Interchapter 2 Beyond history
- Chapter 2 Speak not my name; or, the wings of Minerva
- Interchapter 3 Edith Somerville and Martin Ross's The Real Charlotte
- Chapter 3 Living in a time of epic
- Interchapter 4 James Joyce's Ulysses
- Chapter 4 Irish independence and the bureaucratic imagination, 1922–39
- Interchapter 5 Elizabeth Bowen's The Last September and the art of betrayal
- Chapter 5 Enervated island – isolated Ireland? 1940–60
- Interchapter 6 John Banville's Doctor Copernicus: a revolution in the head
- Chapter 6 The struggle of making it new, 1960–79
- Interchapter 7 Seamus Deane's Reading in the Dark and the rebel act of interpretation
- Chapter 7 Brave new worlds
- Interchapter 8 John McGahern's That They May Face the Rising Sun
- Conclusion The future of the Irish novel in the global literary marketplace
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 1 - Beginnings and endings
Writing from the margins, 1665–1800
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction A history of the Irish novel, 1665–2010
- Interchapter 1 Virtue Rewarded; or, the Irish Princess
- Chapter 1 Beginnings and endings
- Interchapter 2 Beyond history
- Chapter 2 Speak not my name; or, the wings of Minerva
- Interchapter 3 Edith Somerville and Martin Ross's The Real Charlotte
- Chapter 3 Living in a time of epic
- Interchapter 4 James Joyce's Ulysses
- Chapter 4 Irish independence and the bureaucratic imagination, 1922–39
- Interchapter 5 Elizabeth Bowen's The Last September and the art of betrayal
- Chapter 5 Enervated island – isolated Ireland? 1940–60
- Interchapter 6 John Banville's Doctor Copernicus: a revolution in the head
- Chapter 6 The struggle of making it new, 1960–79
- Interchapter 7 Seamus Deane's Reading in the Dark and the rebel act of interpretation
- Chapter 7 Brave new worlds
- Interchapter 8 John McGahern's That They May Face the Rising Sun
- Conclusion The future of the Irish novel in the global literary marketplace
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism.
(Walter Benjamin)Dean Rowland Davies, the chaplain with the Williamite forces who was last seen having his boots stolen in Clonmel, writes in his last journal entry for 30 September 1690: ‘This day the residue of our army began their march towards Kinsale; and the magistrates of Cork, resuming their places, proclaimed the King and Queen, and put the city into some order.’ After the chaos and the upheaval of war comes the hard task of securing and winning the peace, and of bringing stability back into public and private life. One view of the subsequent eighteenth century is that it is a period of relative calm and certainty, in comparison to the centuries preceding and succeeding it. For W. B. Yeats the eighteenth century was the ‘one Irish century that escaped from darkness and confusion’. It is a curious remark and, of course, it is a poet's estimation rather than a historian's. What Yeats, the artist, is attracted to in this century is the ‘image of the modern mind's discovery of itself, of its own permanent form’. His assessment suggests that the eighteenth century marks a break with the old in its embrace of the new. Yet, this does not imply that it was an easy, unproblematic transition, the headlong rush into modernity does not necessarily suggest that all of the past, all of history, is left behind and forgotten: trace elements remain to disturb and disrupt the modernisation project.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- A History of the Irish Novel , pp. 24 - 59Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011