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Creating Postcolonial National Heroes: The Revisionist Myths of W.B. Yeats and James Joyce

McCracken, Heather
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3160-4793
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1472725837

Abstract Details

2016, PHD, Kent State University, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of English.
Beginning in 1169 with the Anglo-Norman Invasion, the colonization of the Irish resulted in centuries of violence, the confiscation of lands, resources, and sovereignty, and the near total destruction of Ireland’s native culture and language. While many Irish continually fought against this occupation, most rebellions ended in nothing more than failure and stricter colonial rule until the early twentieth century when an organized and determined national effort for independence took hold. During this time Irish authors sought to give Ireland a literary culture that would serve as counterpart to its political, economic, and military campaigns for freedom from English rule. This dissertation examines the ways in which W.B. Yeats and James Joyce consciously participated in creating a national identity to inspire decolonization by engaging in revisionist myth-making in order to create new Irish culture heroes. In Yeats’s five Cuchulain plays and Joyce’s Ulysses each author manipulated mythic heroes from Irish and Greek tradition in an attempt to define Irish identity during the nation’s struggle against colonial rule. Yeats and Joyce shaped their individual culture heroes with the deliberate goal of representing the Irish experience from the Irish perspective with the hope of inspiring and uniting the Irish to reclaim their right to rule their own nation. The Cuchulain plays and Ulysses challenged the colonial narrative that the Irish had no culture to speak of, while also confronting and correcting colonial stereotypes perpetuated and spread by the English. Although Yeats and Joyce are often considered incompatible in terms of their involvement with Ireland’s anti-colonial movement, their shared use of revisionist myth and culture heroes suggests something different. This dissertation shows that, despite their opposing beliefs, both authors worked on the same cultural project to promote Irish nationalism in the service of Ireland’s fight for independence.
Claire Culleton (Advisor)
Kevin Floyd (Committee Member)
Tammy Clewell (Committee Member)
Patrick Coy (Committee Member)
224 p.
Literature
Postcolonial theory; marxism; Joyce; Yeats; Irish literature; revisionist myth; culture heroes

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • McCracken, H. (2016). Creating Postcolonial National Heroes: The Revisionist Myths of W.B. Yeats and James Joyce [Doctoral dissertation, Kent State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1472725837

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • McCracken, Heather. Creating Postcolonial National Heroes: The Revisionist Myths of W.B. Yeats and James Joyce. 2016. Kent State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1472725837.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • McCracken, Heather. "Creating Postcolonial National Heroes: The Revisionist Myths of W.B. Yeats and James Joyce." Doctoral dissertation, Kent State University, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1472725837

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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© 2016, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Kent State University and OhioLINK.