A Companion to Irish Literature: 2 Volume Set

The two–volume Companion to Irish Literature covers an unprecedented historical range of Irish literature from the Middle Ages to the present day. Featuring nearly 60 original essays written by a distinguished cast of literary scholars, the Companion explores poetry, drama, and fiction in both English– and Irish–language traditions. Volume One, dedicated to Irish literature from the medieval period to 1900, features essays on topics such as early modern annalists and nineteenth–century Famine writing, together with essays on canonical writers including Swift, Morgan, Carleton, LeFanu, and Wilde. The second volume follows the development of Irish literature through the twentieth century, covering key figures such as Joyce, Yeats, Synge, Beckett, Bowen, Friel, Heaney, Ní Dhomhnaill, McDonagh, and many more. The collection introduces readers to a range of contemporary approaches to Irish studies, from formalism to feminism, from biographical criticism to queer theory, and from new historicism to postcolonial theory. A Companion to Irish Literature is an invaluable and long–awaited resource to the sweeping scope of Ireland′s rich literary history.

VOLUME I Acknowledgments xi Notes on Contributors xiii Introduction 1 Julia M. Wright Part One: The Middle Ages 15 1. Táin Bó Cúailnge 17 Ann Dooley 2. Finn and the Fenian Tradition 27 Joseph Falaky Nagy 3. The Reception and Assimilation of Continental Literature 39 Barbara Lisa Hillers Part Two: The Early Modern Era 57 4. Bardic Poetry, Masculinity, and the Politics of Male Homosociality 59 Sarah E. McKibben 5. Annalists and Historians in Early Modern Ireland, 1450–1700 76 Bernadette Cunningham 6. “Hungry Eyes” and the Rhetoric of Dispossession: English Writing from Early Modern Ireland 92 Patricia Palmer 7. Kinds of Irishness: Henry Burnell and Richard Head 108 Deana Rankin Part Three: The Eighteenth Century 125 8. Crossing Acts: Irish Drama from George Farquhar to Thomas Sheridan 127 Helen M. Burke 9. Parnell and Early Eighteenth–Century Irish Poetry 142 Andrew Carpenter 10. Jonathan Swift and Eighteenth–Century Ireland 161 Clement Hawes 11. Merriman’s Cúirt An Mheonoíche and Eighteenth–Century Irish Verse 178 Liam P. Ó Murchú 12. Frances Sheridan and Ireland 193 Kathleen M. Oliver 13. “The Indigent Philosopher”: Oliver Goldsmith 210 James Watt 14. Edmund Burke 226 Luke Gibbons 15. The Drama of Richard Brinsley Sheridan 243 Robert W. Jones Part Four: The Romantic Period 259 16. United Irish Poetry and Songs 261 Mary Helen Thuente 17. Maria Edgeworth and (Inter)national Intelligence 276 Susan Manly 18. Mary Tighe: A Portrait of the Artist for the Twenty–First Century 292 Harriet Kramer Linkin 19. Thomas Moore: After the Battle 310 Jeffery Vail 20. The Role of the Political Woman in the Writings of Lady Morgan (Sydney Owenson) 326 Susan B. Egenolf Part Five: The Rise of Gothic 343 21. Charles Robert Maturin: Ireland’s Eccentric Genius 345 Robert Miles 22. Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu: Gothic Grotesque and the Huguenot Inheritance 362 Alison Milbank 23. A Philosophical Home Ruler: The Imaginary Geographies of Bram Stoker 377 Lisa Hopkins Part Six: The Victorian Era 393 24. Scribes and Storytellers: The Ethnographic Imagination in Nineteenth–Century Ireland 395 Stiofán Ó Cadhla 25. Reconciliation and Emancipation: The Banims and Carleton 411 Helen O’Connell 26. Davis, Mangan, Ferguson: Irish Poetry, 1831–1849 427 Matthew Campbell 27. The Great Famine in Literature, 1846–1896 444 Melissa Fegan 28. Dion Boucicault: From Stage Irishman to Staging Nationalism 460 Scott Boltwood 29. Oscar Wilde’s Convictions, Speciesism, and the Pain of Individualism 476 Dennis Denisoff VOLUME TWO Introduction 1 Julia M. Wright Part Seven: Transitions: Victorian, Revival, Modern 17 30. Cultural Nationalism and Irish Modernism 19 Michael Mays 31. Defining Irishness: Bernard Shaw and the Irish Connection on the English Stage 35 Christopher Innes 32. The Novels of Somerville and Ross 50 Vera Kreilkamp 33. W.B. Yeats and the Dialectics of Misrecognition 66 Gregory Castle 34. John Millington Synge – Playwright and Poet 83 Ann Saddlemyer 35. James Joyce and the Creation of Modern Irish Literature 98 Michael Patrick Gillespie Part Eight: Developments in Genre and Representation after 1930 113 36. The Word of Politics/Politics of the Word: Immanence and Transdescendence in Sean O’Casey and Samuel Beckett 115 Sandra Wynands 37. Elizabeth Bowen: A Home in Writing 129 Eluned Summers–Bremner 38. Changing Times: Frank O’Connor and Seán O’Faoláin 144 Paul Delaney 39. “Ireland is small enough”: Louis MacNeice and Patrick Kavanagh 159 Alan Gillis 40. Irish Mimes: Flann O’Brien 176 Joseph Brooker Part Nine: Debating Social Change after 1960 193 41. Reading William Trevor and Finding Protestant Ireland 195 Gregory A. Schirmer 42. The Mythopoeic Ireland of Edna O’Brien’s Fiction 209 Maureen O’Connor 43. Anglo–Irish Confl ict in Jennifer Johnston’s Fiction 224 Silvia Diez Fabre 44. Living History: The Importance of Julia O’Faolain’s Fiction 234 Christine St Peter 45. Holding a Mirror Up to a Society in Evolution: John McGahern 248 Eamon Maher Part Ten: Contemporary Literature: Print, Stage, and Screen 263 46. Brian Friel: From Nationalism to Post–Nationalism 265 F.C. McGrath 47. Telling the Truth Slant: The Poetry of Seamus Heaney 281 Eugene O’Brien 48. Belfast Poets: Michael Longley, Derek Mahon, and Medbh McGuckian 296 Richard Rankin Russell 49. Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin’s Work of Witness 312 Guinn Batten 50. Eavan Boland’s Muse Mothers 328 Heather Clark 51. John Banville’s Dualistic Universe 345 Elke D’hoker 52. Between History and Fantasy: The Irish Films of Neil Jordan 360 Brian McIlroy 53. “Keeping That Wound Green”: The Poetry of Paul Muldoon 374 David Wheatley 54. Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill and the “Continuously Contemporary” 390 Frank Sewell 55. The Anxiety of Infl uence and the Fiction of Roddy Doyle 410 Danine Farquharson 56. The Reclamation of “Injurious Terms” in Emma Donoghue’s Fiction 425 Jennifer M. Jeffers 57. Martin McDonagh and the Ethics of Irish Storytelling 436 Patrick Lonergan Index 451

Julia M. Wright is Canada Research Chair in European Studies at Dalhousie University, Canada. She is the author of Blake, Nationalism, and the Politics of Alienation (2004) and Ireland, India and Nationalism in Nineteenth–Century Literature (2007), and the editor of Irish Literature, 1750–1900: An Anthology (Wiley–Blackwell, 2008).