Irish Literature Since 1990

Diverse voices

Edited by Michael Parker, Scott Brewster

Publication date:

01 June 2011

Length of book:

334 pages

Publisher

Manchester University Press

Dimensions:

234x156mm

ISBN-13: 9780719085604

This is a distinctive book that examines the diversity and energy of writing in a period marked by the unparalleled global prominence of Irish culture.

This collection provides a wide-ranging survey of fiction, poetry and drama over the last two decades, considering both well-established figures and also emerging writers who have received relatively little critical attention. Contributors explore the central developments within Irish culture and society that have transformed the writing and reading of identity, sexuality, history and gender. The book examines the impact of Mary Robinson’s Presidency; growing cultural confidence ‘back home’; legislative reform on sexual and moral issues; the uneven effects generated by the resurgence of the Irish economy (the ‘Celtic Tiger’ myth); Ireland’s increasingly prominent role in Europe; and changing reputation.

In its breadth and critical currency, this book will be of particular interest to academics and students working in the fields of literature, drama and cultural studies.

An electronic edition of this book is freely available under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND) licence.

Acknowledgements
Introduction
I: Changing History: the Republic and Northern Ireland since 1990 - Michael Parker
II: Flying High? Culture, Criticism, Theory since 1990 - Scott Brewster

Part One: Drama
1. ‘Home Places: Irish Drama since 1990’ - Clare Wallace and Ondrej Pilny
2. ‘Foregrounding the Body and Performance in Plays by Gina Moxley, Emma Donoghue and Marina Carr - Maria Kurdi
3. ‘The Stuff of Tragedy? Representations of Irish Political Leaders in the
‘Haughey’ Plays of Carr, Barry and Breen - Anthony Roche
4. ‘New Articulations of Irishness and Otherness on the Contemporary Irish Stage’ - Martine Pelletier

Part Two: Poetry
5. ‘Scattered and Diverse: Irish Poetry Since 1990’ - Jerzy Jarniewicz and John McDonagh
6. Architectural Metaphors: Representations of the House in the Poetry of Eiléan Ní
Chuilleanáin and Vona Groarke’ - Lucy Collins
7. ‘The places I go back to’: Familiarisation and Making Strange in Seamus
Heaney’s Later Poetry - Joanna Cowper
8. ‘Neither Here Nor There’: New Generation Northern Irish Poets (Sinead Morrissey
and Nick Laird) - Michael Parker

Part Three: Fiction
9. ‘Tomorrow we will change our names, invent ourselves again’: Irish Fiction and
Autobiography since 1990 - Liam Harte
10. Anne Enright and Postnationalism in the Contemporary Irish Novel - Heidi Hansson
11. Seamus Deane’s Reading in the Dark, John Walsh’s The Falling Angels and John McGahern’s Memoir - Stephen Regan
12. Secret Gardens: Unearthing the Truth in Patrick O’Keeffe’s The Hill Road - Vivian Valvano Lynch
13. ‘What’s it like being Irish?’: The Return of the Repressed in Roddy Doyle’s Paula Spencer - Jennifer M. Jeffers
14. Remembering to Forget: Northern Irish Fiction after the Troubles - Neal Alexander

Part Four : After Words
15. ‘What Do I Say When They Wheel out Their Dead?’: The Representation of
Violence in Northern Irish Art - Shane Alcobia-Murphy
Notes on contributors
Index

With its diverse array of international scholarship, critical overviews and textual analyses, Irish Literature Since 1990 provides a path-breaking assessment of trends and themes in representations of postnational Ireland. A valuable resource for both teachers and students.