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This book examines the topic of excess in modern Irish writing in terms of mysticism, materialism, myth and language. The study engages ideas of excess as they appear in works by major thinkers from Hegel, Kierkegaard and Marx through to Nietzsche, Bataille, Derrida and, more recently, Badiou. Poems, plays and fiction by a wide range of Irish authors are considered. These include works by Oscar Wilde, W. B. Yeats, G. B. Shaw, Patrick Pearse, James Joyce, Sean O'Casey, Louis MacNeice, Samuel Beckett, Elizabeth Bowen, Roddy Doyle, Seamus Heaney, Marina Carr and Medbh McGuckian. The readings presented illustrate how Matthew Arnold's nineteenth-century idea of the excessive character of the Celt is itself exceeded within the modernity of twentieth-century Irish writing.
List of contents
Chapter One: Introduction.- Part One: Mystical Excess.- Chapter Two: Excess as Spiritual Ecstasy: Yeats and Joyce.- Chapter Three: Oriental Excess: Wilde, Yeats, MacNeice.- Chapter Four: Transgressive Sacrifice: Pearse, Yeats, Carr.- Part Two: Material Excess.- Chapter Five: Money and Melodrama: Boucicault, Wilde, Shaw.- Chapter Six: Disposable Living: O'Casey, Beckett, Doyle.- Chapter Seven: Trashing Ulster: Patterson and Reid.- Part Three: Mythic and Linguistic Excess.- Chapter Eight: Mythic Excess: Finnegans Wake.- Chapter Nine: A-voiding the Subject: Bowen and Beckett.- Chapter Ten: Rhyming Away: Heaney, Longley, Muldoon, McGuckian.
About the author
Michael McAteer is Associate Professor at the Institute of English and American Studies, Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Budapest. Previously, he taught Irish writing at the School of English, Queen's University Belfast. His previous publications include Yeats and European Drama (Cambridge University Press, 2010) and Silence in Modern Irish Literature (ed.) (Brill, 2017).
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"One of this book's greatest strengths derives from the texts and passages that have been strategically chosen for close reading. In addition to showcasing the author's forensic eye for detail, these choices lend a certain tightness and coherence ... . a compelling monograph that will be accessible to literary scholars less familiar with philosophy, and vice versa. In addition to this educative value, Excess in Modern Irish Writing serves a timely reminder ... ." (Matthew Fogarty, Irish University Review, Vol. 51 (2), November, 2021)
"There is much to admire and appreciate in McAteer's book. The breadth and scope of his knowledge of Irish literature, current and past Irish literary criticism, and Continental philosophy is evident throughout thebook. McAteer moves easily between these disciplines, presenting his work in clear and accessible prose. ... Bringing new and interesting theoretical frameworks to this emerging work as McAteer does represents a possible way forward." (Michael Gillingham, Irish Studies Review, Vol. (28) 4, 2020)
