You Gotta Know These Works by Irish Authors
- A Modest Proposal (1729) is a satirical essay by Jonathan Swift. In the essay, Swift proposes alleviating the “burden” created by the children of the poor by using the children as food. Swift cites a conversation with “a very knowing American” who notes that “a young healthy child, well nursed, is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food.” Swift continues this satire by offering advice involving the timing of availability (which would be greatest nine months after Lent), and notes that the flesh of children would be appropriate for landlords, since they “have already devoured most of the parents.” Swift couches his actual suggestions for alleviating poverty—such as taxing absentees—in a list of ideas he has considered and rejected as impossible to implement.
- The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) is the only novel by Oscar Wilde. Dorian Gray is a handsome youth who has his portrait painted by his friend, the artist Basil Hallward. Under the influence of the hedonistic Lord Henry Wotton, Dorian pursues a life of sin and pleasure. However, as time passes and Dorian’s life grows more and more perverse—he causes the suicide of the actress Sibyl Vane and murders Basil—Dorian’s portrait becomes older and more disfigured and ugly, while Dorian himself remains eternally young and beautiful. At the end of the novel, Dorian stabs the portrait of himself; instantly, he dies and withers to a disfigured, decrepit corpse, while the picture returns to its original state.
- Dracula (1897) is a novel by Bram Stoker that established many of the modern tropes regarding vampires. Dracula is an epistolary novel, meaning its narrative is conveyed through documents such as diaries and letters written by the characters. Jonathan Harker, a young solicitor (attorney), goes to Transylvania to meet Count Dracula, who wishes to purchase a house in London. Upon arriving in London, Dracula attacks and eventually kills Lucy Westenra, a friend of Harker’s fiancée Mina Murray. Dracula turns his attention to Mina; however, Abraham Van Helsing recognizes the danger posed by the vampire. Van Helsing, Harker, and several acquaintances pursue Dracula back to Transylvania, where they eventually kill him.
- The Playboy of the Western World (1907) is a play by John Millington Synge. A young man named Christy Mahon enters a tavern in western Ireland, claiming that he is wanted for murdering his father. Christy’s tale, and the allure of his deeds, prompt the residents of the town—including Pegeen, the daughter of the tavern’s owner—to become infatuated with him. Eventually, Christy’s father shows up looking for him, revealing Christy’s story to have been a lie; Christy tries to maintain his image by attacking his father, but once again his father survives, and Christy leaves town with his father, much to Pegeen’s dismay. The play’s premiere at the Abbey Theater led to a riot caused by people who felt the play promoted a poor moral message.
- Pygmalion (1913) is a play by George Bernard Shaw, titled for a mythical Greek sculptor who fell in love with a statue that came to life. Henry Higgins is a professor of phonetics; he makes a bet with his acquaintance Colonel Pickering that he could make other people mistake a flower girl—Eliza Doolittle—for a duchess simply by teaching her how to speak with proper diction and grammar. Higgins eventually wins the bet; however, Eliza has been so empowered by her education that she leaves Higgins, since she now longer needs him. Shaw vehemently opposed the numerous attempts by theater managers and movie producers to give the play a “happy ending” in which Higgins and Eliza fall in love and marry. Shaw’s play was the basis for the musical My Fair Lady.
- “Easter, 1916” (1916) is a poem written by William Butler Yeats in the aftermath of the Easter Rising, a week-long uprising against British rule in Ireland; the British government crushed the revolt and executed its leaders. The poem is in four stanzas, three of which end with the refrain “A terrible beauty is born.” In the poem, Yeats describes his past interactions with the revolutionaries, noting “I have met them at close of day” and “I have passed with a nod of the head / Or polite meaningless words” before stating “All changed, changed utterly.” In the last stanza, Yeats specifically memorializes the executed leaders “MacDonagh and MacBride / And Connolly and Pearse.”
- “The Second Coming” (1920) is a poem by William Butler Yeats that uses apocalyptic imagery to describe post-World War I Europe, which at the time was also gripped by a deadly flu pandemic. The poem opens by stating “Turning and turning in the widening gyre / The falcon cannot hear the falconer; / Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.” Yeats further notes “Surely some revelation is at hand; / Surely the Second Coming is at hand” and concludes the poem by asking “what rough beast, its hour come round at last, / Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?” Chinua Achebe used a line from Yeats’s poem to title his novel Things Fall Apart.
- Ulysses (1922) is a novel by James Joyce that is often ranked as one of the greatest novels ever written. The majority of the novel chronicles a day in the life of Leopold Bloom; other principal characters in the work include Bloom’s wife Molly (who is having an affair with Blazes Boylan), Buck Mulligan, and Stephen Dedalus (the protagonist of Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and modeled on Joyce himself). Joyce largely based the structure of his tale on Homer’s Odyssey. The novel is noted for its use of a stream-of-consciousness technique, such as in the last line, when Molly Bloom thinks “yes I said yes I will Yes.” Ulysses takes place on June 16, 1904 in Dublin; fans of the novel have subsequently celebrated June 16 as “Bloomsday.”
- Juno and the Paycock (1924) is a play by Seán O’Casey, set during the Irish Civil War. Jack Boyle, who is known as “captain,” is the drunken head of a family that also includes his wife Juno, daughter Mary, and son Johnny. Charles Bentham brings news that one of Jack’s family members has died and has left him a large inheritance. Jack immediately begins to spend extravagantly; however, due to an error in the will, he discovers he will actually receive next to nothing, and all of his purchases are repossessed. Juno and Mary (the latter of whom has become pregnant due to an affair with Bentham) leave Jack, and Johnny is killed as a traitor by the IRA. The play is part of O’Casey’s Dublin Trilogy, which also includes The Shadow of a Gunman and The Plough and the Stars.
- Waiting for Godot (1953) is an absurdist play by Samuel Beckett, which Beckett described as a “tragicomedy” in a subtitle. Beckett, who was born in Ireland, lived much of his life in France; he originally wrote Waiting for Godot in French. Waiting for Godot is set on a roadside by a single tree. Two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, wait for the arrival of a man named Godot, who never actually appears—though in both acts, a boy does appear bearing a message from Godot that he will not come today, but will come tomorrow. While waiting, the two characters meet Pozzo and his slave, Lucky, who are passing by; Pozzo and Lucky also appear in the second act, but Pozzo has become blind and claims never to have met Vladimir and Estragon before.
This article was contributed by ÎÞÓǶÌÊÓƵ member Jason Thompson.