The Literary Afterlives of Roger Casement, 1899-2016
Alison Garden
Abstract
This groundbreaking study explores the literary afterlives of Ireland’s most enigmatic, shape-shifting and controversial son: Roger Casement. A seminal human rights activist, a key figure in the struggle for Irish independence, a traitor to British imperialism and an enthusiastic recorder of a sexual life lived in the shadows, Casement has endured as a symbol of ambivalence and multiplicity. Casement can be found in the most curious of places: from the imperial horrors of Heart of Darkness (1899) to the gay club culture of 1980s London in Alan Hollinghurst’s The Swimming-Pool Library (1998); f ... More
This groundbreaking study explores the literary afterlives of Ireland’s most enigmatic, shape-shifting and controversial son: Roger Casement. A seminal human rights activist, a key figure in the struggle for Irish independence, a traitor to British imperialism and an enthusiastic recorder of a sexual life lived in the shadows, Casement has endured as a symbol of ambivalence and multiplicity. Casement can be found in the most curious of places: from the imperial horrors of Heart of Darkness (1899) to the gay club culture of 1980s London in Alan Hollinghurst’s The Swimming-Pool Library (1998); from George Bernard Shaw’s play Saint Joan (1923) to a love affair between spies in Elizabeth Bowen’s The Heat of the Day (1948); from the post-Easter Rising elegies of Eva Gore-Booth and Alice Milligan to the beguiling, opaque poetry of Medbh McGuckian. Drawing upon a variety of literary and cultural texts, alongside significant archival research, this book establishes dialogues between modernist and contemporary works to argue that Casement’s ghost animates issues of historical pertinence and pressing contemporary relevance. It positions Casement as a vital and fascinating figure in the compromised and contradictory terrain of Anglo-Irish history.
Keywords:
Roger Casement,
1916 and the Easter Rising,
Ireland,
The Irish Revolutionary Period,
Irish History,
Irish Literature,
Afterlives,
Twentieth-century literature,
Literary Studies,
Cultural Studies
Bibliographic Information
Print publication date: 2020 |
Print ISBN-13: 9781789621815 |
Published to Liverpool Scholarship Online: January 2021 |
DOI:10.3828/liverpool/9781789621815.001.0001 |