1st Edition

Changing States Transformations in Modern Irish Writing

By Robert Welch Copyright 1993
320 Pages
by Routledge

320 Pages
by Routledge

320 Pages
by Routledge

In Changing States Robert Welch examines the work of the major authors of modern Irish literature in the context of the transformation from Gaelic to twentieth-century post-industrial culture. The force of Irish writing, uniting authors as various as Yeats, Heaney, Synge, Beckett, Joyce and Mairtin O Cadhain, largely derives, Welch argues, from their need to respond to the challenges of this... Read more
Preface 1 CHANGE AND STASIS IN IRISH WRITING 2 LANGUAGE AND TRADITION IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 3 GEORGE MOORE: ‘THE LAW OF CHANGE IS THE LAW OF LIFE’ 4 W.B.YEATS: ‘THE WHEEL WHERE THE WORLD IS BUTTERFLY’ 5 J.M.SYNGE: ‘TRANSFIGURED REALISM’ 6 JAMES JOYCE: ‘HE RESTS. HE HAS TRAVELLED’ 7 JOYCE CARY: ‘WONDERING AT DIFFERENCE’ 8 FRANCIS STUART: ‘WE ARE ALL ONE FLESH’ 9 SAMUEL BECKETT: ‘MATRIX OF SURDS’ 10 MÁIRTÍN Ó CADHAIN: ‘REPOSSESSING IRELAND’ 11 SEÁN Ó RÍORDÁIN: ‘RENEWING THE BASIC PATTERN’ 12 BRIAN FRIEL: ‘ISN’T THIS YOUR JOB TO TRANSLATE?’ 13 SEAMUS HEANEY: ‘LEAVING EVERYTHING’ 14 MOVEMENT AND AUTHORITY: ‘SUDDENLY YOU’RE THROUGH’. CODA: SEERS AND DANCERS

Biography

Robert Welch is Professor of English at the University of Ulster at Coleraine. He is the author of a number of books on Irish literature; editor of The Oxford Companion to Irish Literature and a poet and translator. Muskerry, a volume of his poetry, appeared in 1991.