The Irish Book In English 1891 2000

Part of a series providing an authoritative history of the book in Ireland, this volume comprehensively outlines the history of 20th-century Irish book culture. This book embraces all the written and printed traditions and heritages of Ireland and places them in the global context of a worldwide interest in book histories.

This is the first study of the cultural meanings of advertising in the Irish Revival period. John Strachan and Claire Nally shed new light on advanced nationalism in Ireland before and immediately after the Easter Rising of 1916, while also addressing how the wider politics of Ireland, from the Irish Parliamentary Party to anti-Home Rule unionism, resonated through contemporary advertising copy. The book examines the manner in which some of the key authors of the Revival, notably Oscar Wilde and W. B. Yeats, reacted to advertising and to the consumer culture around them. Illustrated with over 60 fascinating contemporary advertising images, this book addresses a diverse and intriguing range of Irish advertising: the pages of An Claidheamh Soluis under Patrick Pearse's editorship, the selling of the Ulster Volunteer Force, the advertising columns of The Lady of the House, the marketing of the sports of the Gaelic Athletic Association, the use of Irish Party politicians in First World War recruitment campaigns, the commemorative paraphernalia surrounding the centenary of the 1798 United Irishmen uprising, and the relationship of Murphy's stout with the British military, Sinn Féin and the Irish Free State.

The Cold of May Day Monday offers an indvidual view of the history of Irish literature from its very earliest phases up to the present day, more or less, with discussions of major writers such as Friel, Heaney, Derek Mahon, McGahern, and John Banville. Robert Welch traces the roots of Irish literature in myth and legend and explores ancient and pre-Celtic deposits and remembrances; saga literature, as well as devotional writing; the bardic heritage and the cycles of tales of early Ireland; the importance and survival of folklore; and the later phases of Irish literature, from the seventeenth century onwards. Welch frames his study around themes and clusters rather than chronology, seeking to retain coherence by means of a sustained attention to the thematic strains. Substantial attention is paid to the figure of the Hag in Irish literary culture. The often deeply troubled relations between Ireland and England inevitably call for treatment as well, most notably in chapters examining the Great Famine and its consequences for literature and cultural expression. Yeats is one of the key figures, as are O'Casey and Synge, but the focus is on their literary output, not their political experiences (though these are not overlooked).Robert Welch offers a readable account of a fascinating literary history, providing insights into the connections between Irish legend and literature, and accounts of the some of the best Irish writers of the twentieth century.

This book is an original account of coterie culture in twentieth-century Ireland and the networks and connections which fostered women's writing. It paints a vivid portrait of the inspirational women involved in the Women Writers' Club, showcasing their influence and achievements in literature and their political campaigning for intellectual and creative freedom.

This book addresses both the dissemination and increased understanding of the specificity of Irish literature in Italy during the first half of the twentieth century. This period was a crucial time of nation-building for both countries. Antonio Bibbò illustrates the various images of Ireland that circulated in Italy, focusing on political and cultural discourses and examines the laborious formation of an Irish literary canon in Italy. The center of this analysis relies on books and articles on Irish politics, culture, and literature produced in Italy, including pamplets, anthologies, literary histories, and propaganda; translations of texts by Irish writers; and archival material produced by writers, publishers, and cultural and political institutions. Bibbò argues that the construction of different and often conflicting ideas of Ireland in Italy as well as the wavering understanding of the distinctiveness of Irish culture, substantially affected the Italian responses to Irish writers and their presence within the Italian publishing field. This book contributes to the discussion on transnational aspects of canon formation, reception studies, and Italian cultural studies.

"This volume seeks to delineate the history of the production, dissemination, and reception of texts from the earliest pictograms of the mid-4th millennium to recent developments in electronic books."--P. xi.

The Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish Fiction presents authoritative essays by thirty-five leading scholars of Irish fiction. They provide in-depth assessments of the breadth and achievement of novelists and short story writers whose collective contribution to the evolution and modification of these unique art forms has been far out of proportion to Ireland's small size. The volume brings a variety of critical perspectives to bear on the development of modern Irish fiction, situating authors, texts, and genres in their social, intellectual, and literary historical contexts. The Handbook's coverage encompasses an expansive range of topics, including the recalcitrant atavisms of Irish Gothic fiction; nineteenth-century Irish women's fiction and its influence on emergent modernism and cultural nationalism; the diverse modes of irony, fabulism, and social realism that characterize the fiction of the Irish Literary Revival; the fearless aesthetic radicalism of James Joyce; the jolting narratological experiments of Samuel Beckett, Flann O'Brien, and Máirtín Ó Cadhain; the fate of the realist and modernist traditions in the work of Elizabeth Bowen, Frank O'Connor, Seán O'Faoláin, and Mary Lavin, and in that of their ambivalent heirs, Edna O'Brien, John McGahern, and John Banville; the subversive treatment of sexuality and gender in Northern Irish women's fiction written during and after the Troubles; the often neglected genres of Irish crime fiction, science fiction, and fiction for children; the many-hued novelistic responses to the experiences of famine, revolution, and emigration; and the variety and vibrancy of post-millennial fiction from both parts of Ireland. Readably written and employing a wealth of original research, The Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish Fiction illuminates a distinguished literary tradition that has altered the shape of world literature.