Ireland and the Fiction of Improvement

Name: Ireland and the Fiction of Improvement
Price: 10.89 USD
Availability: InStock
ISBN: 9780199286461

ISBN-10: 0199286469

ISBN-13: 9780199286461

Edition: 2006

Authors: Helen O'Connell

List price: $67.00

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Description:

This is the first study of Irish improvement fiction, a neglected genre of nineteenth-century literary, social, and political history. It shows how the fiction of Mary Leadbeater, Charles Bardin, Martin Doyle, and William Carleton attempted to lure the reader away from popular genres such as fantasy, romance, and "radical" political tracts by demonstrating the value of hard work, frugality, and sobriety in a rigorously realistic mode, representing the contentment that inheres in a plain social order free of excess and embellishment. Improvement discourse defined itself in opposition to the perceived excesses of both revolutionary politics and romantic poetry, seeking (but failing) to…

Book details

List price: $67.00
Copyright year: 2006
Publisher: Oxford University Press, Incorporated
Publication date: 11/23/2006
Binding: Hardcover
Pages: 240
Size: 5.71" wide x 8.82" long x 0.72" tall
Weight: 0.836
Language: English

Helen O'Connell is a Lecturer in English Studies at the University of Durham. She has previously lectured at University College Dublin.



Introduction: The Aesthetics of Excess



'False Refinement', Plain Speech, and Improved Writing



Improvement and Nostalgia: Society Schools and Hedge Schools



The Silence of Irish



Political Discipline and the rhetoric of Moderation



The Aesthetics of Excess: Improvement and Revivalism


Conclusion