Classics and Celtic Literary Modernism - Yeats, Joyce, Macdiarmid and Jones

Celtic modernism had a complex history with classical reception. In this book, Gregory Baker examines the work of W. B. Yeats, James Joyce, David Jones and Hugh MacDiarmid to show how new forms of modernist literary expression emerged as the evolution of classical education, the insurgent power of cultural nationalisms and the desire for transformative modes of artistic invention converged across Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Writers on the 'Celtic fringe' sometimes confronted, and sometimes consciously advanced, crudely ideological manipulations of the inherited past. But even as they did so, their eccentric ways of using the classics and its residual cultural authority animated new decentered idioms of English - literary vernaculars so fragmented and inflected by polyglot intrusion that they expanded the range of Anglophone literature and left in their wake compelling stories for a new age. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

List of contents

1. 'A noble vernacular?' Yeats, Hellenism and the Anglo-Irish nation; 2. 'Hellenise it.' Joyce and the mistranslation of revival; 3. 'Straight Talk, Straight as the Greek!' Ireland's Oedipus and the modernism of Yeats; 4. 'Heirs of Romanity:' Welsh nationalism and the modernism of David Jones; 5. 'A form of Doric which is no dialect in particular:' Scotland and the planetary classics of Hugh MacDiarmid.

About the author

Gregory Baker is Assistant Professor of English and the Director of Irish Studies at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC.

Product details

• Authors: Gregory Baker, Gregory (Catholic University of America Baker, Baker Gregory
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 01.07.2023
• EAN: 9781009364980
• ISBN: 978-1-0-0936498-0
• No. of pages: 322
• Series: Classics after Antiquity
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Antiquity; English, HISTORY / Ancient / General, LITERARY CRITICISM / Ancient & Classical, LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / 19th Century, LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / 20th Century, Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900, Literary studies: classical, early & medieval, Literary studies: from c 1900 -, Ancient History, Ancient history: to c 500 CE, Celtic languages, Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000, Literary studies: ancient, classical and medieval