Modern Irish literature
Subtitle: sources and founders
By: Vivian Mercier ; edited and presented by Eilís Dillon.
Contributors: Dillon, Eilís, 1920-
Publisher: Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press
Published: 1994
Place of publication: Oxford; Oxford; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 381
Subjects: English literature -- Irish authors -- History and criticism; Ireland in literature; Ireland -- Intellectual life -- 20th century; Ireland -- Intellectual life -- 19th century
Description: Modern Irish Literature: Sources and Founders marks the culmination of the lifetime interest of the distinguished scholar Vivian Mercier (1919-89) in the influence of Gaelic literature on modern Irish writing.

Building on the insights developed in his classic The Irish Comic Tradition, in which he traced the continuity of attitudes and subjects of Irish writers from pre-Christian times to the present, Professor Mercier's focus here is on the research of nineteenth-century scholars which gave rise to the revival of Irish literature in English.

Separate chapters analysing the work of writers including Bernard Shaw, Yeats, Synge, Joyce, and Beckett build to provide a fresh and timely picture of Irish literary tradition. Informed by a wealth and diversity of scholarship, and written in a highly accessible style, the book stands as a memorial to the achievement of Vivian Mercier and as an important contribution to the study of Irish literature.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [355]-360) and index.