Irish Orientalism: A Literary and Intellectual History

By Joseph Lennon

Book Overview

British writers from Cambrensis to Spenser depicted Ireland as a remote border land inhabited by wild descendants of Asian Scythiansbarbarians to the ancient Greeks. Contemporaneous Irish writers likewise borrowed classical traditions, imagining the Orient as an ancient homeland. Lennon traces Irish Orientalism through origin legends, philology, antiquarianism, historiography into Irish literature and culture, exploring the works of Keating, O'Flaherty, Swift, Vallancey, Sheridan, Moore, Croker, Owenson, Mangan, de Vere, and others. He explores a key moment of Irish Orientalismthe twentieth-century Celtic Revivaldiscussing the works of Gregory, Casement, Connolly, and Joyce, but focusing on Theosophist writers W. B. Yeats, George Russell, James Stephens, and James Cousins.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0815630441
• ISBN13: 9780815630449
• Release Date: May 2004
• Publisher: Syracuse University Press
• Length: 478 Pages
• Weight: 1.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.5" x 9.5"