Description
Book SynopsisTraces development of Irish literary modernism from the 1920s to the 1990s through the writings of James Joyce, John Millington Synge, Samuel Beckett, Sean O’Faolain, Frank McCourt, and the Blasket Island autobiographers, Tomas O’Crohan and Maurice O’Sullivan. Considers Irish literature in relation to Irish nationalism and aftermath of British empire.
Trade Review"In place of of the conventional aesthetic and chronological distinction between Revivalism, Modernism, and Counter-Revivalism (the latter primarily associated with modes of critical realism and naturalism), Quigley skillfully redeploys the conception of "late modernism" developed by Jed Esty to map the relationship between forms of English modernism and imperial decline." -Journal of Postcolonial Writing "A cogent, compelling, and significant intervention into the field of modern Irish literary studies on the one hand, and an intriguing account of the politics of so-called global or transnational modernism on the other. It's a seasoned and sure-handed piece of scholarly work; Quigley writes with force and precision, never skirting issues that require patient excavation and consideration." -- -Jed Esty University of Pennsylvania "Emerging from a recent wave of new modernist scholarship, Mark Quigley's first book, Empire's Wake, is a rich exploration of Irish postcolonial writing and modernist form...Overall, this timely study highlights the critical potential in shifting the parameters of modernism." -Modernism/modernity (Project Muse)
