Session 3: The Irish Literary Revival

I. Personalities

• Dr. Douglas Hyde
• William Butler Yeats

II. Societies

• The Irish Literary Society founded in London in 1891
• The National Literary Society founded in Dublin in 1892
  Dr. Douglas Hyde’s its first president – inaugural address: ‘The Necessity forDe-Anglicising Ireland’
• The Gaelic League founded in 1893 by Dr. Douglas Hyde
  - Irish-English Dictionary (1904)
  - the weekly Claidheamh Soluis (1803-1809), editor Patrick Pearse

III. The literary scene

• History of Ireland (1880) by Standish O’Grady;
• Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry (1888) by W. B. Yeats;
• Beside the Fire (1890) by Douglas Hyde -- the first authentic collection of Irish folklore
• Love Songs of Connacht (1893) by Douglas Hyde -- the beauty folksong in Hierno-English translations
• The Story of Early Gaelic Literature (1895) by Douglas Hyde
• Literary History of Ireland (1899) by Douglas Hyde
• The Celtic Twilight (1893) by W. B. Yeats -- reflected the growing interest in the elts and their way of life

IV. The theatre

• the Irish Literary Theatre, founded in 1893 with Yeats’s important contribution
  launched in May 1899 with two plays: The Countess Cathleen by W. B. Yeats and The Heather Field by Edward Martyn
• the Irish National Theatre Society in 1901
• the Abbey Theatre in 1904

V. Emblems

• Cú Chulainn
  in Standish O’Grady: History of Ireland: Cuculain and his Contemporaries (1880) and The Coming of Cuculain (1895) – a novel,
  in Yeats: ‘Cuchulain’s Fight with the Sea’ – a poem in the volume The Rose (1893)
  in Lady Gregory: Cuchulain of Muirthemne (1902) a narrative
• Caitlín ní Uallacháin or Cathleen Ni Houlihan
  in Yeats’s plays: Countess Cathleen and Cathleen Ní Houlihan

VI. Representatives

• William Butler Yeats
• Dr. Douglas Hyde (p. 68-71)
  author of ‘The Necessity for De-Anglicizing Ireland’ – the Irish who have slowly imitated and adopted English culture should revert to national values that make up their identity: language, past and traditions, names, folklore,
• Lady Augusta Gregory (p. 71-72)
  author of: Cuchulain of Muirthemne (1902) – a retelling of the stories that belong to the Ulster cycle having at its centre the hero Cú Chulainn; and Gods and Fighting Men (1904) – a translation of the main tales of the Fionn cycle.
• Standish O’Grady
• George Russell (pseudonym AE)
• Padraic Colum
• Patrick Henry Pearse
• Austin Clarke
• John Millington Synge

VII. Opponents

• James Joyce – against the tendency to look backwards and westwards
• Samuel Beckett – against parochialism and archaism
  in his burlesque novel Murphy (1938)
• Daniel Corkery – against split between the Protestant Ascendancy and the Catholic Masses

VIII. John Millington Synge: The Playboy of the Western World (1907)

• Synge defined it as ‘a comedy, an extravaganza, made to amuse’. In it he tried to depict realistically the condition of the Irish people living in an isolated rural community in Co. Mayo (in Western Ireland), marked by poverty, physical depravation and arranged marriages.
• characters: Christy Mahon, Pegeen Mike, Shawn Keogh, Widow Quinn
• the language: Hiberno-English
• the scandal – because the play was seen by Irish nationalists as a travesty of Irish life, a representation of a community of alcoholics and incompetent fantasists – the play is an irony, a mock-heroic creation, a demystification of over-romanticized Ireland, a parody of stereotypes:
  - Christy, in spite of his athletic prowess, is obviously not a Cú Chulainn, a figure of heroic dimensions, but rather a figure of fun, a Don Quixote;
  - the scene when he is about to be hanged by the angry villagers is a grotesque parody of Christ’s crucifixion;
  - the love scenes in the play are derived from Douglas Hyde’s Love Songs of Connacht;
  - Synge’s Western World has nothing to do with the romanticised terrestrial paradise in the west of Ireland

IX. Video

From The Playboy of the Western World

Session 2: Anglo-Irish Prose in Modern Ireland

I. The socio-political context

• Fight for Irish independence:
  Daniel O'Connell and the Catholic Association,
  The Young Ireland Movement
• The Great Famine of 1847-1851
• The Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB)
• The Home Rule Association and Charles Stewart Parnell

II. Trends and themes in the prose of the modern period

The condition of Ireland writings are writings whose concern was the political, social and cultural situation of Ireland, the Young Ireland Movement and the Great Famine and its aftermath.

• William Carleton: Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry and The Black Prophet

The regional novel is a literary creation whose main concern was a particular area and the people who inhabit such particular areas.

• Maria Edgeworth: Castle Rackrent

The big house theme is associated with the representation of the big houses of the Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland and reflects the uncertainties and worries of the Protestant landowning class in their decline during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the context of the process of emancipation of the Irish people.

• Maria Edgeworth: Castle Rackrent
• Somerville and Ross: The Real Charlotte

The Irish gothic is placed under the influence of Horace Walpole's Castle of Otranto and Walter Scott. Irish Gothic fiction is marked by less sensationalism, the constant avoidance of dealing with anxieties, lunatic asylums or marital cruelty and its pronounced lack of interest in the medieval period. Such fiction is more attached to history and politics.

• Sheridan Le Fanu: In a Glass Darkly
• Bram Stoker: Dracula

III. Representatives and works

1. Maria Edgeworth: Castle Rackrent (1800)

• the first regional novel in English narrating about the degradation and ruin of an Anglo-Irish Protestant family of landowners seen across four generations.
• the narrator is an old steward, Thady Quirk, an unreliable narrator whose role is to witness and not participate and then to report. He uses a sort of 'vernacular idiom' of the Hiberno-English kind, another characteristic that gives the novel its regional character.

2. William Carleton

Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry (1830-1833)

• a work about Ireland’s political, economic and religious issues at local level
• one of the most authentic and vivid accounts of the life of Ireland’s poor rural people narrated with humour and full of sympathy and understanding

 The Black Prophet: A Tale of the Irish Famine (1846-1847)

• a novel that Carleton wrote under the influence of the Great Famine of 1845 in which he attacks various groups – money-lenders, extortionists, landlords, middlemen and government for having brought the country to the disaster of 1845-1850.

3. Somerville and Ross

The Real Carlotte (1894)

• deals with the issues of social decline of the aristocracy and moves across a broad social spectrum of Irish society from rural peasants to lower-middle-class Dubliners.
• it lines up with the tradition of the big house Ascendancy novel and treats ‘the classic theme of class and character'.

Some Experiences of an Irish R. M. (1899) and its sequels: Further Experiences of an Irish R. M. (1908) and In Mr Knox’s Country (1915) – collected in 1956 under the title The Irsh R. M. 

• a collection of hilarious tales having Major Sinclair Yeates (the R. M – i.e. Resident Magistrate – of the title) at their centre and as their narrator.
• he is a comic stereotype of the congenial and well-meaning Englishman who believes he has understood the way of life of the Irish natives but who often finds himself helpless and lost in the maze of Irish local habits.

4. Sheridan Le Fanu: In a Glass Darkly (1872)

• a collection of five stories presented as case histories from the papers of a Dr. Martin Hesselius who investigates different manifestations of mental disorders.
• each story is told by an unbiased narrator, the former medical secretary to Dr Hesselius, whose task is to edit the late doctor’s work left to him as a collection of papers he has to arrange, index and bind.
• the secretary reproduces ‘with slight modifications, chiefly of language, and of course a change of names’ the letters of Dr Hesselius addressed to his friend, the Professor Van Loo of Leyden.
• a triple filter of verisimitude: (i) the medical facts are narrated by the doctor in letters addressed to his friend, (ii) reproduced then by the secretary and finally (iii) offered as such to the reader by the writer.

'Carmilla'

• a vampire story which turns round Laura and her dealings with the vampire Carmilla and her avatars (Mircalla and Millarca).
• it sets the standard for Gothic vampire literature – though vampire stories (such as Dracula) lean more towards horror than Gothic or romantic in style of writing.

5. Bram Stoker: Dracula

• the connection with the Romanian prince Vlad Tepes (Vlad the Impaler) and the derivation the name 'Dracula' -- the original name was 'The Un-Dead'.
• the association with the vampire literature in the European tradition: John Polidori in The Vampyre (1819), with his vampire story inspired by elements of Lord Byron‘s vampire poem, ‘The Giaour‘ (1813).
• Dracula is an epistolary novel, narrated by multiple voices with different viewpoints -- written as a collection of diary entries and personal documents – Jonathan’s journal of his trip to Transylvania, Mina’s diary, Seward’s recorded journal – telegrams, and letters from the characters, as well as fictional clippings from the Whitby and London newspapers.
• Dracula in films: the most famous screen adaptations of Stoker’s Dracula: Nosferatu (1922, a silent film directed by F. W. Murnau), Dracula (1931, directed by Tod Browning), and Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992, directed by Francis Ford Coppola).

IV. Videos

Nosferatu (1922)

From Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

 

Session 1: Early Irish Storytelling - Myths and Sagas

I. Cycles of myths and sagas

1. the Mythological Cycle

• tales: Cath Maige Tuaired (Battle of Mag Tuired), Tochmarc Étaíne (The Wooing of Étain)
• characters: Tuatha Dé Danann,
• about their struggle against the Fomorians and their defeat by the Milesians, after which they went underground to live in the sídhes.

2. the Ulster Cycle

• tales: Táin Bó Cuailnge (The Cattle Raid of Cooley), Fled Bricrenn (Feast of Bricriu), Togail Bruidhne Da Derga (Destruction of Da Derga Hostel), Táin Bó Fráich (Froech’s Cattle Raid).
• characters: Connor Mac Nessa and the Red Branch Knights, Cú Chulainn
• location: Emain Macha (Navan Fort)

3. the Fenian Cycle or the Fionn Cycle or the Ossianic Cycle

• stories: Tóraigheacht Dhiarmada agus Ghráinne (Pursuit of Diarmaid and Gráinne), Oisín i dTír na nÓg (Oisin in the Land of Youth)
• characters: Fionn Mac Cumhaill (or Mac Cool), the Fianna, Oisín

4. Historical or King Cycle

• tales: Caith Maithe Rath (The Battle of Moyra), Cath Almaine (The Battle of Allen), Buile Shuibhne (Frenzy of Sweeney)
• characters: kings of ancient Ireland
• location: Tara

II. Manuscripts

1. Lebor na hUidre (The Book of the Dun Cow)

• 12th century in the monastery of Clonmacnoise
• comprises 37 stories
• very much is corrupted or missing
• contains: a complete version of ‘The Birth of Cú Chulainn’, an incomplete version of ‘The Wooing of Étain’, some fragmentary stories of ‘The Cattle Raid of Cooley’

2. The Book of Leinster

• about 1160
• much larger and more polished than the first, but still with missing passages, corrupted text or words with obscure meaning
• includes: the complete version of ‘The Cattle Raid of Fróech’, ‘The Labour Pains of the Ulaid’, a complete, more refined version of ‘The Cattle Raid of Cooley’

3. The Yellow Book of Lecan

• contains: ‘The Cattle Raid of Cooley’ more inclusive and in better shape, ‘The Wooing of Étain’ which is now complete

IV. The Mythological Cycle

• about the Tuatha de Danaan / Dannan / Danann
• contained in: Leabhar Gabhála (or Lebor Gabála Érenn – The Book of Invasions)
• story: 'Caith Maige Tuaired' ('The Battle of Mag Tuired')
  - the arrival of the Tuatha
  - their conquest over the Fir Bolgs
  - their mythic battle against the Fomorians and
  - the story of Nuada of the Silver Arm
  

The Tuatha

• sacrosanct objects they brought along:
  - lia fáil (the stone of destiny)
  - Lug’s spear
  - Nuada’s sword
  - Dagda’s giant cauldron
• fight against the Fomorians
• fight against the Milesians – their conquest of Ireland
• the people of the sídhe
• tale: The Wooing of Étain (p. 7-8, pages refer to the course Adrian Radu: 'An Introduction to Irish Literature', on loan from the library)

V. The Ulster Cycle

• contains: TheTáin (An Táin Bó Cuailgne – The Cattle Raid of Cooley)
• heroes and stories:
  - Connor Mac Nessa
  - the Red Branch Knights
  - Macha and the story of Emain Macha and the spell on the men of Ulster – dinnshenchas story
  - Cú Chulainn and the stories: how Cú Chulainn got his name (Sétanta) (p. 10), presentation of Cú Chulainn (p. 10-11), the battle-frenzy (p. 11).

The Táin

• from about the 8th century
• contained in the following manuscripts:
  - the Book of the Dun Cow, in a fragmentary way
  - the Book of Leinster where it appears integral and in a more polished version
  - itself completed in the Yellow Book of Lecan
• main characters:
  - Queen Medb
  - King Alill
  - the bulls: Finnbenach (the White-Horned Bull) and Donn Cuailnge (the Brown Bull of Cooley) (p. 12)
  - Cú Chulainn

VI. The Fenian / Ossianic Cycle

• heroes:
  - Fionn mac Cumhaill (Fionn Mac Cool)
  - his son, Oisín
  - the Fianna
• contained in:
  - The Book of Leinster
  - Acallam na Senorach (Colloquy of the Ancients)
• stories of the dinnshenchas type. The dinnshenchas stories are stories representing the lore of famous places, how they came to be so or bear the name that they have.
• Oisín and Caoilte

The Voyage tales. The voyage tales are tales in which adventurousness and love for the sea and the far and away west is expressed. Such tales involve voyages to fantastic realms, such as the Otherworld where time is suspended.

• the imram (or immram, pl. immrama) – interest on the journey to the Otherworld, usually located on the islands in the Western ocean
  - Imram Brain, (8th century) (p. 15) and
  - Laoi Oisín i dTír na nÓg (Oisin in the Land of Youth) (same period – recovered about 1750) (p. 15-16);
• the echtra (or eachtra) – the interest focuses on a scene in the Otherworld and the voyage is but a subordinate framework

VII. The Historical / King Cycle

• tales composed between the 9th and 12th centuries which refer to persons and events between the 6th to 8th centuries
• tales about rulers, dynastic conflicts, battles and historical events
• story: Buile Shuibhne (The Madness of Sweeney) (p. 17-20)
• the buile motif.
  The buile, or frenzy is a motif that recurs consistently in Irish literature and has in common with other cultures the reserved place that is set aside for the knowledge and wisdom of the madman, and of the outlaw. It has the following characteristics:
  - It is associated with transcendental (otherworldly) visions – often about the future of Ireland, or
  - linked with the material world – increased capacity of perception (such as of the territory of Ireland) in relation to a person’s state of mind

Buile Shuibhne / The Madness of Sweeney

• text of the 12th century, probably composed at Armagh
• main characters:
  - Suibhne / Sweeney
  - Rónan
  - Saint Molling / Mullins
• contemporary replicas:
  - Flann O’Brien: At Swim Two Birds
  - Seamus Heaney: Sweeney Astray

VIII. Videos 

The Legend of Sétanta / Cú Chulainn



Davy Spillane - Caoineadh Cú Chulainn / The Lament of Cú Chulainn