Irish culture and wartime Europe, 1938-48 / Dorothea Depner and Guy Woodward, editors.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Depner, Dorothea.

Woodward, Guy, 1984-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Ireland--History--1922-.

Ireland.

History.

Physical Description:

205 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Portland, OR : Four Courts Press, [2015]

Summary:

The decade between 1938 and 1948 was a time of immense upheaval across Europe which deeply affected Irish writers and artists. Many of them had travelled extensively across the Continent and some returned there even in the face of war. At the same time, a number of their English counterparts sought refuge from unfolding events in Ireland. Taking these intersecting journeys as a starting point, the essays in this collection explore afresh the cultural history of this decade and the continuing impact of the events around and during the Second World War on Irish literature and culture. They represent, as R.F. Foster writes, 'a suggestive exploration into an imaginative territory which has been too long left uncharted.' The essays address writers including Samuel Beckett, John Betjeman, Graham Greene, T.H. White, Stephen Gilbert, Denis Johnston, Patrick Kavanagh, Louis MacNeice, Kate O'Brien, Francis Stuart and Evelyn Waugh, as well as the painter Nevill Johnson. During this turbulent decade, their engagements with home and abroad, self and other, complicate established narratives of Irish neutrality and isolation and shed new light on the intricate cultural and historical interconnections between Ireland and Europe. Book jacket.

Contents:

'Poised on the edge of absence': Kavanagh and MacNeice in the shadow of war / Simon Workman Workman, Simon 23

John Hewitt and the art of writing / Kathryn White White, Kathryn 41

An anxious seaward gaze: Nevill Johnson, surrealism and the Second World War in Northern Ireland / Conor Linnie Linnie, Conor 50

A bombardier writes home: Stephen Gilbert / Gay Woodward Woodward, Gay 64

T.H. White, Ireland and the Second World War: writing and re-writing The Once and Future King / Anne Thompson Thompson, Anne 74

English perceptions of Irish culture, 1941-3: John Betjeman, Horizon and The Bell / Alex Ranchman Ranchman, Alex 87

Evelyn. Waugh, Graham Greene and 1940s Ireland / Eve Patten Patten, Eve 99

Kate O'Brien's subtle critique of Franco's Spain and de Valera's Ireland, 1936-46 / Ute Anna Mittermaier Mittermaier, Ute Anna 113

'On behalf of suffering foreigners'- Francis Stuart in Germany / Dorothea Depner Depner, Dorothea 130

Nine Rivers from Jordan: a lost masterpiece of reportage / Maurice Walsh Walsh, Maurice 148

Denis Johnston's European journey and Irish search / Tom Walker Walker, Tom 161

"Writing homelessness: the fugitive literature of Samuel Beckett and W.G. Sebald / Julie Bates Bates, Julie 174

The war came down on us here / Gerald Dawe Dawe, Gerald 186.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1846825628

9781846825620

OCLC:

905879904