| Twentieth-Century Irish Literature Contributor(s): Pierce, David (Author) |
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ISBN: 074562667X ISBN-13: 9780745626673 Publisher: Polity Press OUR PRICE: $25.16 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: February 2004 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Literary Criticism |
| Series: Cultural History of Literature |
| Physical Information: 296 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: A small island with fewer than five-and-a-half million people has produced four Nobel Prize-winners for Literature, two Booker Prize-winning novelists, and a succession of writers whose books have stocked the libraries and bookshops of the world. This remarkable phenomenon is the starting-point for this stimulating new inquiry. Twentieth-Century Irish Literature provides an indispensable introduction to the field of modern Irish writing. The book begins by examining the impact of the Great Famine and cultural nationalism on modern Irish culture. It then takes a fresh look at Yeats and the Easter Rising and casts new light on Joyce and colonialism with reference to the "English" game of cricket. A final section provides a wide-ranging survey of the entire period. It explores the image of the West, the position of the North, the figure of de Valera, the sense of loss and recuperation of the self, the representation of the body, and the issue of violence in Troubles fiction. A carefully structured introduction contextualizes the study in terms of stereotypes, language, history, and culture. In the conclusion, the book provides a reading of contemporary Irish fiction and verse in terms of cultural belatedness and examines the important contribution of John McGahern. |