Black roads : the famine in Irish literature

Author / Creator

Smart, Robert Augustin, 1952- author

Available as

Physical

Summary

The Great Hunger was the most gothic event in Ireland's history and has haunted Irish literature ever since. Both Irish Gothic literature and the work of the Irish modernists resonate with the cult...

The Great Hunger was the most gothic event in Ireland's history and has haunted Irish literature ever since. Both Irish Gothic literature and the work of the Irish modernists resonate with the cultural memory of the suffering of millions. In the struggle to resist the diminishment of this tragedy, Irish Gothic writers preserved the memory of the Famine when a general silence prevailed among Victorial historians and novelists. This essay traces the impact of the Famine on Irish literature from William Carleton's "The Black Prophet" to more contemporary work by authors including Patrick McCabe, Seamus Heaney and Eavan Boland, as well as playwrights such as Tom Murphy, Conor McPherson and Marina Carr, and argues that all post-Famine Irish literature is about the Famine. --Page [4] of cover.

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