1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910300029603321

Autore

Ingman Heather

Titolo

Ageing in Irish Writing : Strangers to Themselves / / by Heather Ingman

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cham : , : Springer International Publishing : , : Imprint : Palgrave Macmillan, , 2018

ISBN

3-319-96430-5

Edizione

[1st ed. 2018.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (IX, 209 p.)

Disciplina

809.41

Soggetti

British literature

Literature, Modern—20th century

Literature, Modern—21st century

British and Irish Literature

Twentieth-Century Literature

Contemporary Literature

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

1. Introduction: Gerontology and its Challenges -- 2. Ageing, Time and Aesthetics: Dorian Gray, W. B. Yeats and Elizabeth Bowen’s The Little Girls -- 3. Resisting the Narrative of Decline: Molly Keane, Time After Time, Deirdre Madden Authenticity and Anne Enright The Green Road -- 4. Ageing, the Individual and the Community: Iris Murdoch, John Banville and John McGahern -- 5. A Voice of Their Own: Portraits of Old Age in the Irish Short Story -- 6. Frail Old Age -- 7. Epilogue: The Bedbound and Dying.

Sommario/riassunto

Age is a missing category in Irish literary criticism and this book is the first to explore a range of familiar and not so familiar Irish texts through a gerontological lens. Drawing on the latest writing in humanistic, critical and cultural gerontology, this study examines the portrayal of ageing in fiction by Elizabeth Bowen, Molly Keane, Deirdre Madden, Anne Enright, Iris Murdoch, John Banville, John McGahern, Norah Hoult and Edna O’Brien, among others. The chapters follow a logical thematic progression from efforts to hold back time, to resisting the decline narrative of ageing, solitary ageing versus ageing in the community, and dementia and the world of the bedbound and dying.



One chapter analyses the changing portrayal of older people in the Irish short story. Recent demographic shifts in Ireland have focused attention on an increasing ageing population, making this study a timely intervention in the field of literary gerontology.