The Question of Irish Identity in the Writings of William Butler Yeats and James Joyce

by Eugene O'Brien

Foregrounds the ethical consequences of the attitudes to Irishness and to Irish identity in the work of the two Irish writers, contending that their writing enunciates an ethical definition of Irishness that has overt and covert political and societal implications for an Ireland in the midst of peace talks. Theorizes the different aspects of Irishness found in the two by contrasting them with others that were hegemonic at the time, drawing on the theoretical efforts of Adorno, Levinas, and Derrida. Double spaced. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

283 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1998

Reviews

[The Half-blood Reader]

College reads: I only read chapters/sections relevant to my studies, hence the dnf (Introduction; 1. Spatial and Temporal Notions of Irish Identity; 3. Yeats: Voices of Myth - Voices of Critique; 4. Joyce: A Commodius Vicus of Recirculation)