Haunted English

Haunted English by Laura O'connor

Haunted English explores the role of language in colonization and decolonization by examining how Anglo-Celtic modernists W. B. Yeats, Hugh MacDiarmid, and Marianne Moore "de-Anglicize" their literary vernaculars. Laura O'Connor demonstrates how the poets' struggles with and through the colonial tongue are discernible in their signature styles, using aspects of those styles to theorize the dynamics of linguistic imperialism-as both a distinct process and an integral part of cultural imperialism. O'Connor argues that the advance of the English Pale and the accompanying translation of the receding Gaelic culture into a romanticized Celtic Fringe represents multilingual British culture as if it were exclusively English-speaking and yet registers, on a subliminal level, some of the cultural losses entailed by English-only Anglicization. Taking the fin-de-siecle movements of the Gaelic revival and the Irish Literary Renaissance as her point of departure, O'Connor examines the effort to undo cultural cringe through language and literary activism.

This is a promising contribution to an expanding discipline-- Paul Shanks Comparative Literature Studies 2008 Laura O'Connor has written a distinguished and groundbreaking study. -- Murray Pittock Clio 2008 Haunted English is precisely the type of scholarly work that one hopes to encounter in one's field: a book that is smart, engaging, and intellectually provocative. -- Rob Doggett Victorian Studies 2008 Haunted English is an often brilliant account of how three modernist poetries contributed to the global decline of Anglocentrism... Essential for anyone looking for fresh interpretations of Yeats, MacDiarmid, or Moore, it will also interest readers concerned with the promises and challenges of writing transnational literary criticism. -- Matthew Hart Modernism/Modernity 2008 Insightful, scintillating, attentive to every nuance... O'connor's study will reward greatly anyone interested in the critical revivalism that is both her subject and her inheritance. -- Gregory Castle Irish Literary Supplement 2009

Laura O'Connor is an associate professor of English and comparative literature at the University of California-Irvine.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780801884337
ISBN 10	0801884330
Title	Haunted English
Author	Laura O'connor
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Johns Hopkins University Press
Year published	2007-01-22
Number of pages	264
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.