1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910300038903321

Autore

O'Sullivan Michael

Titolo

Irish Expatriatism, Language and Literature [[electronic resource] ] : The Problem of English / / by Michael O'Sullivan

Pubbl/distr/stampa

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

ISBN

3-319-95900-X

Edizione

[1st ed. 2018.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (230 pages)

Collana

New Directions in Irish and Irish American Literature

Disciplina

491.62

Soggetti

British literature

Literature, Modern—20th century

Literature—History and criticism

Literature   

British and Irish Literature

Twentieth-Century Literature

Literary History

Postcolonial/World Literature

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di contenuto

1. Introduction -- 2. Swift: The Irish expat ‘at home’ with “our language” -- 3. Goldsmith: The Irish expat in London as “Chinaman” -- 4. Irish expat empire builders in China and Hong Kong: Robert Hart and John Pope Hennessy -- 5. Yeats: The expat buys property back home -- 6. Joyce: The expat and the ‘loss of English’ -- 7. Bowen: the unspeakable loneliness of the Anglo-Irish expat -- 8. Boland: can the expat find a ‘home’ in language? -- 9. A Forgotten Irish Cosmopolitanism: Goh Poh Seng’s Ireland -- 10. Social Network Expatriatism and new departures in John Boyne and Donal Ryan.

Sommario/riassunto

This book examines how Irishness as national narrative is consistently understood ‘from a distance’. Irish Presidents, critics, and media initiatives focus on how Irishness is a global resource chiefly informed by the experiences of an Irish diaspora predominantly working in English, while also reminding Irish people ‘at home’ that Irish is the 'national tongue'. In returning to some of Ireland’s major expat writers



and international diplomats, this book examines the economic reasons for their migration, the opportunities they gained by working abroad (sometimes for the British Empire), and their experiences of writing and governing in non-native English speaking communities such as China and Hong Kong. It argues that their concerns about belonging, loneliness, the desire to buy a place ‘back home’, and losing a language are shared by today’s generation of social network expatriates.