“…Andrew Murphy highlights the complexity of what may appear to be a counterintuitive claim … that Shakespeare might actually be seen as Ireland's national poet, just as much as he is England's national poet. Irish nationalist leaders, from Theobald Wolfe Tone in the 1790s to Patrick Pearse at the beginning of the twentieth century, had a peculiar devotion to Shakespeare and found in his work something profoundly fruitful for their own thinking about the nation … Shakespeare can thus be said both to register the instability of the concept of the nation and to offer a vehicle for Irish nationalists to work through the complexities and volatilities of their own national constructs (Murphy, , p. 206; see also Murphy, ; Maley, ).Milton, too, was read by Theobald Wolfe Tone, who cites Paradise Lost on a number of occasions in his diary (e.g., Tone, , 3, p. 49). John Toland, Charles Leslie, Jonathan Swift, Edmund Burke, Henry Grattan, James Joyce, W.B.…”
This essay examines a largely undocumented aspect of Irish literary history: the reception and circulation of John Milton's writings in Ireland. Milton's negative views of the inhabitants of Ireland have been well documented, but this essay analyses some of the intellectual responses of readers, writers, and thinkers in Ireland to the English republic's leading apologist for the conquest of Ireland. I argue that such an approach is required in order to redirect the critical narrative away from examinations of the hackneyed anti‐Irish stereotypes written for colonial agendas and to shed light on the ways in which Milton was read to speak to and about a range of political, religious, social, and ethical issues in early modern and late modern Ireland. The essay also seeks to introduce my book‐length study of the topic which, ranging across printed and manuscript sources—from Irish translations of Milton's poetry to political appropriations of his controversial prose—interrogates the collective assumptions, aspirations, fears, anxieties, and prejudices of readers and writers in Ireland as they are revealed in response to the self‐conflicting voice of civil and religious liberties, on the one hand, and aggressive English colonialism on the other.
“…Andrew Murphy highlights the complexity of what may appear to be a counterintuitive claim … that Shakespeare might actually be seen as Ireland's national poet, just as much as he is England's national poet. Irish nationalist leaders, from Theobald Wolfe Tone in the 1790s to Patrick Pearse at the beginning of the twentieth century, had a peculiar devotion to Shakespeare and found in his work something profoundly fruitful for their own thinking about the nation … Shakespeare can thus be said both to register the instability of the concept of the nation and to offer a vehicle for Irish nationalists to work through the complexities and volatilities of their own national constructs (Murphy, , p. 206; see also Murphy, ; Maley, ).Milton, too, was read by Theobald Wolfe Tone, who cites Paradise Lost on a number of occasions in his diary (e.g., Tone, , 3, p. 49). John Toland, Charles Leslie, Jonathan Swift, Edmund Burke, Henry Grattan, James Joyce, W.B.…”
This essay examines a largely undocumented aspect of Irish literary history: the reception and circulation of John Milton's writings in Ireland. Milton's negative views of the inhabitants of Ireland have been well documented, but this essay analyses some of the intellectual responses of readers, writers, and thinkers in Ireland to the English republic's leading apologist for the conquest of Ireland. I argue that such an approach is required in order to redirect the critical narrative away from examinations of the hackneyed anti‐Irish stereotypes written for colonial agendas and to shed light on the ways in which Milton was read to speak to and about a range of political, religious, social, and ethical issues in early modern and late modern Ireland. The essay also seeks to introduce my book‐length study of the topic which, ranging across printed and manuscript sources—from Irish translations of Milton's poetry to political appropriations of his controversial prose—interrogates the collective assumptions, aspirations, fears, anxieties, and prejudices of readers and writers in Ireland as they are revealed in response to the self‐conflicting voice of civil and religious liberties, on the one hand, and aggressive English colonialism on the other.
“…Shakespeare ‘meditates with tremendous sympathy and regret upon the fortunes of those usurped figures that Yeats represents in his criticism – Richard II and Hamlet, Lear and Timon, Antony and Coriolanus’ (Putz :97). Andrew Murphy (:171) situates Yeats's view within the wider context of Irish nationalist readings of Richard that were sympathetic to his plight.…”
Section: IIImentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Andrew Murphy (), in his important essay on Shakespeare and the Easter Rising, homes in on the ways in which Shakespeare informed the political perspectives of educated unionists and nationalists. According to Murphy (ibid.…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…In an article entitled ‘Martial Law’, The Irish Times on 27 April 1916 advised its readers to use their time indoors productively: ‘How many citizens of Dublin have any real knowledge of the works of Shakespeare? Could any better occasion for reading them be afforded than the coincidence of enforced domesticity with the poet's tercentenary?’ (cited in Murphy :179). The ‘citizens’ of Dublin shared with Shakespeare their status as subjects of an imperial monarchy.…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…A month earlier, on 24 March 1916, the same newspaper, in a piece headed ‘Shakespeare in Dublin’, had expressed concern that the city might not make enough fuss about Shakespeare's tercentenary: ‘At this time the whole Empire is fighting for ideals that Shakespeare, more than any other human being, helped to shape and glorify. Irish soldiers are bleeding and dying for those ideals’ (cited in Murphy :161).…”
It is a commonplace to speak of the dramatic qualities of the Easter Rising; the staging of rebellions inevitably attracts theatrical comparisons. In the case of 1916, the dramatic aspect has arguably been overplayed. Either the focus is on amateur dramatics and improvization, with the Rising itself as a piece of theatre, which plays down the history and politics as well as the rich theatrical traditions behind the Rising, or the emphasis is on a drama of martyrdom and grand gesture, a political passion‐play with Padraig Pearse at its centre, which erases many of the conflict's complexities. That 1916 also coincided with the three‐hundredth anniversary of Shakespeare's death – events in Dublin interrupted planned celebrations there by the English playwright's Irish admirers – prompts us to reflect on an approach to history as drama – and drama as history – that does not see theatre merely in terms of spectacle or violence, a theatricality that goes beyond caricature, character assassination, pantomime, or the politics of a Punch and Judy show. This article suggests that a reading of 1916 in the context of the ongoing critical debate around Shakespeare's dramatic depictions of the Irish has more to teach us than invocations of theatricality of a more limited kind.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
