Yeats and Joyce: Cyclical History and the Reprobate TraditionWhile postcolonial studies has contributed much to our understanding of Irish modernism, it has also encouraged less-than-accurate portrayals of Joyce and Yeats as polar opposites: Yeats as the inventor of Irish mystique and Joyce as its relentless demythologiser. Alistair Cormack's complex study provides a corrective to these misleading characterisations by analysing the tools Yeats and Joyce themselves used to challenge representation in the postcolonial era. Despite their very different histories, Cormack suggests, these two writers can be seen as allies in their insistence on the heresy of the imagination.Reinvigorating and politicising the history of ideas as a powerful medium for studying literature, he shows that Joyce and Yeats independently challenged a linearity and materialism they identified with empire. Both celebrated Ireland as destabilising the accepted forms of thought and the accepted means of narrating the nation. |
Contents
Part 1 | 24 |
2 | 39 |
Nationalism Modernism and Minor Literature | 61 |
Part 2 | 68 |
7 | 74 |
A Vision | 117 |
206 | |
212 | |
Other editions - View all
Yeats and Joyce: Cyclical History and the Reprobate Tradition Alistair Cormack No preview available - 2018 |
Common terms and phrases
abstract aesthetic appears approach argues argument Aristotle artist attempt becomes believe Berkeley Blake Bloom body Bruno called Cambridge chapter construction contraries created critics culture described edition English esoteric existence explain fact fiction figure final Finnegans Wake Hermetic human Ibid idea idealism idealist identity imagination important individual interesting Interpretation Ireland Irish James Joyce Joyce's language later linked literature London Marxism material means mind minor literature nationalism nationalist nature never objects offered opposition original Oxford particular passage past perhaps Phase philosophy poet poetic political position possible present progress question reading reality reason reference reflection represents seems seen sense similar Stephen story structure suggests symbol theory things thinking thought tradition trans true Ulysses understand University Vico Vico's Vision whole writing Yeats and Joyce Yeats's