States of desire
Subtitle: Wilde, Yeats, Joyce, and the Irish experiment
By: Vicki Mahaffey.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 1998
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 276
Subjects: Yeats, W. B. 1865-1939 -- Criticism and interpretation.; Wilde, Oscar, 1854-1900 -- Criticism and interpretation.; Joyce, James, 1882-1941 -- Criticism and interpretation.; English literature -- Irish authors -- History and criticism.; English literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism.; English literature -- 20th century -- History and criticism.; National characteristics, Irish, in literature.; Ireland -- In literature.
Description: This book is an intimate study of the three giants in Irish literary history: Oscar Wilde, William Butler Yeats, and James Joyce. In addition to constructing a narrative of Ireland's political and literary past, Vicki Mahaffey interweaves the lives and writing of the authors into a portrait of national imagination, shaped not only by a vast cultural and mythic heritage, but also by the hard fact of English political domination.

States of Desire argues that what people desire is fundamentally connected to how they write and read. Not only do language and narrative shape desire (and vice versa), but because these processes are socially conditioned, some political circumstances, such as those present in Ireland at the turn of the century, foster experimental desire more successfully than others.

Mahaffey's contribution to the critical discourse on literary modernism is to assign a political motive to the art of modernist wordplay; in doing so, she offers a more compelling and socially driven version of the oft-told tale of literary modernism.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 253-260) and index.