Jonathan Swift : the Irish identity / Robert Mahony
1995, 1st edition. New Haven [Conn.] : Yale University Press. Near fine cloth copy in a good if somewhat edge-nicked and dust-dulled dust wrapper, now mylar-sleeved. Remains particularly well-preserved overall; tight, bright, clean and strong. Item #321868
ISBN: 0300063741
Physical description: xvii, 222 pages: illustrations; 24 cm. Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 199-215) and index. Contents: 1. Swift and George Faulkner: Cultivating Irish Memory -- 2. The Early Biographers: Preserving Mixed Impressions -- 3. British Canonization and Irish Diffidence, 1755-1800 -- 4. A Protestant 'Liberator', 1800-1840 -- 5. A Nationalist Ancestor, 1840-1870 -- 6. Nationalism and Historicism: Confirmation and Resistance, 1870-1930 -- 7. From Patriot to Personality, 1930-1995. Subjects: Swift, Jonathan 1667-1745 Homes and haunts Ireland. Nationalism Ireland History 18th century. National characteristics, Irish, in literature. Authors, Irish Homes and haunts Ireland. Authors, Irish 18th century; Biography. Nationalists Ireland; Biography. Statesmen Ireland; Biography.
Genre: Bibliography. Illustrated. Summary: This book traces Swift's fluctuating reception in Ireland through the centuries, finding in Swift's ambivalence about his homeland - which he could not love even as he defended its cause - echoes and anticipations of the ambiguities that have marked the development of Irish identity at large. Mahony looks at Swift's posthumous reputation in literary culture and examines his unusual place in Irish political rhetoric. He shows that Swift's patriotic reputation suffered in the later eighteenth century through its seeming irrelevance to shifting political circumstances.
Price: €14.95