Theorizing Ireland

'Claire Connolly has done Irish Studies a service by bringing together a rich and at times surprising collection of materials which speak well to each other ...Connolly's selection ... includes important emergent voices as well as dominant ones and covers a range of cultural forms - poetry, fiction, drama, material culture, political discourse. It therefore provides an excellent introduction to general concerns through examples of some of the most stimulating cultural criticism in the field.' - David Alderson, University of Manchester 'this book will be warmly recieved by students, teachers and other interested readers. Quite simply, Theorizing Ireland comprises an exceptional selection of critical essays, which is richly annotated and thoroughly introduced.' - Paul Delaney, The Irish Review

CLAIRE CONNOLLY is Lecturer in English Literature and Cultural Criticism at Cardiff University.

General Editor's Preface.- Acknowledgements.- Introduction: Ireland in Theory; C. Connolly.- Heroic Styles: The Tradition of an Idea; S. Deane.- The Virtual Reality of Irish Fairy Legend; A. Bourke.- 'Bog Queens': The Representation of Women in the Poetry of John Montague and Seamus Heaney; P. Coughlan.- To Bind the Northern to the Southern Stars: Field Day in Derry and Dublin; S. Richards.- Narratives of the Nation: Fact, Fiction and Irish Cinema; L. Gibbons.- Changing the Question; T. Eagleton.- Misplaced Ideas?: Colonialism, Location and Dislocation in Irish Studies; J. Cleary.- The Nineteenth-Century Novel; S. Kilfeather.- Tantalized by Progress; C. Morash.- The Politics of Poetic Form; C. Wills.- 'In the Midst of all this Dross': Establishing the Grounds of Dissent; R. Kirkland.- Subalternity and Gender: Problems of Post-Colonial Irishness; C. Graham.- The Spirit of the Nation; D. Lloyd.- Summaries and Notes.- Further Reading.- Index.