Wild colonial girl : essays on Edna O'Brien / edited by Lisa Colletta and Maureen O'Connor.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

O'Connor, Maureen, 1960-

Colletta, Lisa.

Series:

Irish studies in literature and culture.

Irish studies in literature and culture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Women and literature--Ireland.

Women and literature.

Irish in literature.

Ireland--In literature.

Ireland.

O'Brien, Edna--Criticism and interpretation.

O'Brien, Edna.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (186 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Madison : University of Wisconsin Press, c2006.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Since the 1960 publication of her first novel, The Country Girls, award-winning Irish writer Edna O'Brien has been both celebrated and maligned. Praised for her lyrical prose and vivid female characters and attacked for her frank treatment of sexuality and alleged sensationalism, O'Brien and her work seem always to spawn controversy, including the past banning in Ireland of several of her works. O'Brien's attention to "women's" concerns such as sex, romance, marriage, and childbirth has often relegated her to critical neglect at best and, at worst, outright contempt. This essay collection promises to be a long overdue critical reevaluation and exciting rediscovery of her oeuvre. Wild Colonial Girl situates O'Brien in Irish contexts that allow for an appraisal of her significant contribution to a specifically Irish women's literary tradition while attesting to the potency of writing against patriarchal conventions. Each chapter's clear and detailed readings of O'Brien's fiction build a convincing case for her literary, political, and cultural importance, providing an invaluable critical guide for an enriched appreciation of O'Brien and her work.

Contents:

In the name of the mother : reading and revision in Edna O'Brien's Country girls trilogy and epilogue / Kristine Byron

Hysterical hooliganism : O'Brien, Freud, Joyce / Helen Thompson

Edna O'Brien's "love objects" / Rebecca Pelan

Edna O'Brien and the lives of James Joyce / Michael Patrick Gillespie

Godot land and its ghosts : the uncanny genre and gender of Edna O'Brien's "Sister Imelda" / Wanda Balzano

Blurring boundaries, intersecting lives : history, gender, and violence in Edna O'Brien's House of splendid isolation / Danine Farquharson, Bernice Schrank

On the side of life : Edna O'Brien's trilogy of contemporary Ireland / Sophia Hillan.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9786612270086

9781282270084

1282270087

9780299216337

0299216330

OCLC:

646809517