A study of the key themes and events essential to understanding Irish fiction and drama
In Understanding Contemporary Irish Fiction and Drama, Margaret Hallissy examines the work of a cross-section of important Irish writers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries who are representative of essential issues and themes in the canon of contemporary Irish literature. Included are early figures John Millington Synge and James Joyce; dramatists Brian Friel, Conor Mc Pherson, and Tom Murphy; and prize-winning contemporary fiction writers such as Edna O’Brien, Joseph O’Connor, William Trevor, Roddy Doyle, and Colum Mc Cann.
Each chapter focuses on one significant representative piece of contemporary Irish fiction or drama by filling in its cultural, historical, and literary background. Hallissy identifies a key theme or key event in the Irish past essential to understanding the work. She then analyzes earlier literary compositions with the same theme and through a close reading of the contemporary work provides context for that background. The chapters are organized chronologically by relevant historical events, with thematic discussions interspersed. Background pieces were chosen for their places in Irish literature and the additional insight they provide into the featured works.
About the author
Margaret Hallissy is a professor of English at Long Island University in Brookville, New York. She is the author of Reading Irish-American Fiction: The Hyphenated Self; A Companion to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales; Clean Maids, True Wives, Steadfast Widows: Chaucer’s Women and Medieval Codes of Conduct; Venomous Woman: Fear of the Female in Literature; and many scholarly articles on medieval and modern literature.
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