The myth of manliness in Irish national culture, 1880-1922 / Joseph Valente.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Valente, Joseph.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Masculinity in literature.

Irish literature--History and criticism.

Irish literature.

Masculinity--Ireland--Psychological aspects.

Masculinity.

Men--Ireland--Psychology.

Men.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (305 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Urbana, Ill. : University of Illinois Press, c2011.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This study aims to supply the first contextually precise account of the male gender anxieties and ambivalences haunting the culture of Irish nationalism in the period between the Act of Union and the founding of the Irish Free State. To this end, Joseph Valente focuses upon the Victorian ethos of manliness or manhood, the specific moral and political logic of which proved crucial to both the translation of British rule into British hegemony and the expression of Irish rebellion as Irish psychomachia. The influential operation of this ideological construct is traced through a wide variety of contexts, including the career of Ireland's dominant Parliamentary leader, Charles Stewart Parnell; the institutions of Irish Revivalism--cultural, educational, journalistic, and literary; the writings of both canonical authors (Yeats, Synge, Gregory, and Joyce) and subcanonical authors (James Stephens, Patrick Pearse, Lennox Robinson); and major political movements of the time, including suffragism, Sinn Fein, Na Fianna E Éireann, and the Volunteers. The construct of manliness remains very much alive today, underpinning the neo-imperialist marriage of ruthless aggression and the sanctities of duty, honor, and sacrifice. Mapping its earlier colonial and postcolonial formations can help us to understand its continuing geopolitical appeal and danger.

Contents:

Cover

Title page

Copyright

Contents

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Preface

Introduction: The Double Bind of Irish Manhood: Historical Backgrounds and Conceptual Horizons

1. The Manliness of Parnell

2. Afterlives of Parnell: Political, Cultural, Literary

3. The Mother of All Sovereignty

4. Brothers in Arms

5. "Mixed Middling": James Joyce and Metrocolonial Manliness

Epilogue: "Manhood Is All": Yeats and Poetics of Discipline

Notes

Index.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [249]-275) and index.

ISBN:

9786612959608

9781282959606

1282959603

9780252090325

0252090322

OCLC:

841172533