Charles Maturin
Subtitle: authorship, authenticity and the nation
By: Jim Kelly
Publisher: Four Courts Press,  Ltd
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Portland, OR; Dublin
Language: eng
Number of pages: 208
ISBN-13: 9781846823046
Subjects: Irish Novelists; History and criticism; Criticism and interpretation
Description: "Charles Maturin (1780-1824) is best known today for his Gothic masterpiece "Melmoth the Wanderer" (1820). A thorough study of his wider work reveals him to have been a deeply conflicted writer at a time when a newly idealized conception of authorship was emerging alongside a ruthlessly commercial book industry. This is the first study to look at the entirety of Maturin's work in fiction, drama and sermons within the context of changing attitudes to authorship, authenticity and the idea of national literature in the Romantic period. Maturin emerges from this study a far more complex figure than his previous reception indicates, and also shows how his work engaged with issues at the heart of Irish, British and European Romanticism." -- Back Cover
Notes: Includes bibliographic references (p.194-201) and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction: Maturin and the work of writing; title: Affect/ agency/ authenticity; title: Imitations of immorality: "Fatal revenge" and "The Wild Irish Boy"; title: 'Passing before modern eyes': romance and rebellion in "The Milesian Chief"; title: 'My muse I find is too atrocious for the stage': Maturin's drama; title: The trouble with "Women": gender and agency in modernity; title: Superstitious nonsense: "Melmoth the Wanderer" and the oral tradition; title: 'Is this a country to be silent in?': confessional politics in "Five sermons" and "The Albigenses"; title: Conclusion: Melmoth in the marketplace.