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Nostalgia and Rancor in Dubliners

Nostalgia and Rancor in Dubliners Michael Patrick Gillespie For hundreds of years, political repression and economic disintegration have served as the driving forces that compelled Irish literary figures and myriad others to leave their country. Around the turn of the last century, however, creative stagnation--perpetrated by indigenous groups and, paradoxically, informed by a renewed interest in artistic expression--stood as a danger just as perilous to the imaginative lives of Irish writers as famine and war had been to the physical well-being of their predecessors. As the Literary Revival gained force, the prescriptive aesthetic principles laid down primarily by George Russell, W.B. Yeats, and Lady Augusta Gregory set rigid standards for what would be considered "art." Becoming a successful author in Ireland meant adhering to these views, and authors like John Millington Synge, Padraic Colum, James Stephens, and numerous others through preference or pragmatism toed the Revivalist line. Not all fell into line so quickly. James Joyce, at that time just beginning his career, already possessed a fierce creative independence and an abiding selfconfidence in his imaginative abilities. Like Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw before him and Sean O'Casey and Samuel Beckett afterward, his departure from Ireland became inevitable.1 Of course, being Joyce, http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png New Hibernia Review Center for Irish Studies at the University of St. Thomas

Nostalgia and Rancor in Dubliners

Gillespie, Michael Patrick.
New Hibernia Review , Volume 15 (2) – Jun 2, 2011
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Publisher
Center for Irish Studies at the University of St. Thomas
Copyright
Copyright © Center for Irish Studies at the University of St. Thomas
ISSN
1534-5815
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Abstract

Michael Patrick Gillespie For hundreds of years, political repression and economic disintegration have served as the driving forces that compelled Irish literary figures and myriad others to leave their country. Around the turn of the last century, however, creative stagnation--perpetrated by indigenous groups and, paradoxically, informed by a renewed interest in artistic expression--stood as a danger just as perilous to the imaginative lives of Irish writers as famine and war had been to the physical well-being of their predecessors. As the Literary Revival gained force, the prescriptive aesthetic principles laid down primarily by George Russell, W.B. Yeats, and Lady Augusta Gregory set rigid standards for what would be considered "art." Becoming a successful author in Ireland meant adhering to these views, and authors like John Millington Synge, Padraic Colum, James Stephens, and numerous others through preference or pragmatism toed the Revivalist line. Not all fell into line so quickly. James Joyce, at that time just beginning his career, already possessed a fierce creative independence and an abiding selfconfidence in his imaginative abilities. Like Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw before him and Sean O'Casey and Samuel Beckett afterward, his departure from Ireland became inevitable.1 Of course, being Joyce,

Journal

New Hibernia Review – Center for Irish Studies at the University of St. Thomas

Published: Jun 2, 2011

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