THE LITERATURE OF NATIONAL IDENTITY: A CASE STUDY OF REVITALIZATION IN 19TH CENTURY COLONIAL IRELAND.
Item
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Title
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THE LITERATURE OF NATIONAL IDENTITY: A CASE STUDY OF REVITALIZATION IN 19TH CENTURY COLONIAL IRELAND.
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Identifier
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AAI8401479
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identifier
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8401479
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Creator
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HUGHES, PATRICK MICHAEL.
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Contributor
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Emil Oestereicher
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Date
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1983
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Sociology, Social Structure and Development
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Abstract
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This dissertation examines the culture of national identity in a colonial situation. While a modern development requires the transformation of traditional class structures, in Ireland, the urban middle classes also had to overcome the problem of settler and native status community differentiation while relating to an overseas colonial state.;An investigation of the Irish Tories, Daniel O'Connell, and the Young Irelanders of the 1830s and '40s reveals a high degree of social cleavage. The political classes of Dublin failed to unite and develop an industry which would absorb the massive rural population made redundant by the rationalization of agriculture. Apart from the antagonism of Protestant settler and Catholic native, each social class was internally divided. A natural aristocracy confronted an upwardly mobile new elite while one church sought to outmaneuver the other. The secularized were tied to a conservative clergy; those articulating a specific Irish interest were associated with a political party at Westminster. The economic and political proposals of this period reflected these oppositions, the contradictory and impossible nature of their situation.;However, they did formulate an aesthetic nationhood in the pages of Dublin University Magazine and the cultural nationalism of Thomas Davis. While in 19th century Europe there was a popular urban identification with the modern nation, economic opportunities and the "march of the intellect," in Ireland, the culture of national identity, Tory and progressive, looked to the past. To achieve hegemony within the middle classes, all sought to naturalize their own social class, defining the nation through a revitalization of different symbologies from long dead eras or using the imagery of social classes in their twilight years.;The inner structure and form of this 19th century aesthetic nationhood is analyzed in a selection of materials ranging from Moore's Irish Melodies to W. B. Yeats and the cultural renaissance at the turn of the 20th century.;Aspects of Karl Marx's political theory, Roland Barthes' theory of myth as depoliticized speech, and Max Weber's theory of status legend are critically incorporated in this case study of a revitalized national identity.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Sociology
