Thresholds and Ways Forward in English Studies
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Flawed to Start : the Inconsequence of Action in the Novels of Brian Oâ
Montclair State University Montclair State University Digital Commons Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects 5-2018 Flawed to Start : The nconsequeI nce of Action in the Novels of Brian O’Nolan Christopher M. Mitchell Montclair State University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/etd Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Mitchell, Christopher M., "Flawed to Start : The ncI onsequence of Action in the Novels of Brian O’Nolan" (2018). Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects. 145. https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/etd/145 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Montclair State University Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects by an authorized administrator of Montclair State University Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Abstract Brian O’Nolan’s novels At Swim-Two-Birds, The Poor Mouth, and The Third Policeman present worlds where character actions are largely inconsequential. This discussion will focus on reflexive metanarrative elements, criticism of the Irish revivalist movements and authorship and creation as a means to survive these worlds. O’Nolan’s novels will be shown to be largely optimistic in their confrontation of nihilistic concerns. Much of his writing is comedic and playful even when dealing with serious topics. Repetition through both language and story structure are key components of the futility O’Nolan constructs for his characters and readers. This thesis examines the interplay between futility and creativity in O’Nolan’s works. FLAWED TO START: THE INCONSEQUENCE OF ACTION IN THE NOVELS OF BRIAN O’NOLAN A THESIS Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of Master of Arts by CHRISTOPHER M. -
The Dalkey Archive & Pierre Teilhard De Selby
The Dalkey Archive & Pierre Teilhard de Selby Roibeard Ó Cadhla Birkbeck, University of London There are several technical oddities in Flann O’Brien’s last novel, The Dalkey Archive. For instance, from the first page there is a suggestion that the third-person narrative is being focalised through Sergeant Fottrell. After a brief description of a granite hill covered in furze and bracken, the text descends into alliterative repetition: ‘vert, verdant, vertical, verticillate, vertiginous, in the shade of branches even vespertine. Heavens, has something escaped from the lexicon of Sergeant Fottrell?’1 This narrative intrusion is particularly odd since we do not meet Fottrell for some time, and most of the novel was changed from the first-person perspective of Mick Shaughnessy to the third-person at a late stage in its composition, hence the overwhelming focalisation through Mick. This is only one of the burrs that might justify Maebh Long’s observation that The Dalkey Archive ‘reads with all the random noise, inconsistencies and disorder of the archive.’2 The recent publication of an inventory of Brian O’Nolan’s library is an occasion for us to explore some more overtones between the archive and the ‘random noise’ in this novel, and to examine the author’s intellectual engagements. One such engagement is O’Nolan’s apparent interest in the French philosopher and Jesuit priest, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, for the Irish writer’s library at Boston College contains copies of Teilhard de Chardin’s The Phenomenon of Man (T. W. Moody’s 1959 English translation) and The Future of Man (Norman Denny’s 1964 translation).3 Many aspects of the later incarnation of De Selby in The Dalkey Archive, plundered from the draft of The Third Policeman (1967; written 1939–40), find parallels in the work of Teilhard de Chardin. -
Flann O'brien Papers 1880-1997, Undated (Bulk 1930-1966) MS.1997.027
Flann O'Brien Papers 1880-1997, undated (bulk 1930-1966) MS.1997.027 http://hdl.handle.net/2345/1136 Archives and Manuscripts Department John J. Burns Library Boston College 140 Commonwealth Avenue Chestnut Hill 02467 library.bc.edu/burns/contact URL: http://www.bc.edu/burns Table of Contents Summary Information .................................................................................................................................... 3 Administrative Information ............................................................................................................................ 4 Related Materials ........................................................................................................................................... 4 Biographical note: Flann O'Brien .................................................................................................................. 5 Biographical Note: Evelyn O'Nolan .............................................................................................................. 6 Biographical note: Micheál Ó Nualláin ......................................................................................................... 6 Scope and Contents ........................................................................................................................................ 7 Arrangement ................................................................................................................................................... 7 Collection Inventory ...................................................................................................................................... -
Flann O'brien's at Swim-Two-Birds: an Introduction
Foster 1 Flann O'Brien's At Swim-Two-Birds: An Introduction Thomas C. Foster Once upon a time, a young man from Dublin wrote a very odd novel called, oddly, At Swim-Two-Birds. His novel, for all its peculiarity, is hard-pressed to match the strangeness of its own history. It has been praised and ignored, destroyed and resurrected, admired from afar and despised by its creator. It has received the bemused and perplexed criticism of all writing that forges a new direction in literature, has become the playground for myriad critical theories, has been compared (often speciously) to every experimental novel under the sun. The truth, though, is that At Swim-Two Birds is like nothing else. Created by a writer who was very much his own man, it is very much its own book. Perhaps the first oddity is that the author, who was not happy with the name of his creation, was not even happy with his own name. Flann O'Brien never existed. He was a creation of Brian O'Nolan, or Nolan, or Ó Nualláin, the son of a civil servant, Michael, whose surname appeared in all those forms (with spelling variations of the last) on official documents throughout and even after his life (Cronin 3-4). Brian, like his father a civil servant, prudently decided that a writer of fiction and essays, many of which would be satirical and even occasionally scurrilous, would do well to adopt a pen name. While at University College Dublin, he had employed the moniker "Brother Barnabas" fairly consistently, and he would write a column, Cruiskeen Lawn (Gaelic for "Little Brimming Pot"), that appeared for decades in the Irish Times using the name "Myles na gCopaleen (or Gopaleen)." Myles and Flann were different in two very important respects: Myles was a complete creation with a separate identity and personality from his creator, whereas Flann was merely a name, and Brian liked Myles. -
Flann O'brien's the Third Policeman
013_Meyer_109 15-06-2010 10:40 Pagina 109 JÜRGEN R. MEYER GAMES WITH NAMES: FLANN O’BRIEN’S THE THIRD POLICEMAN A name can just name a particular, or if it does not, it is not a name at all, it is a noise. Bertrand Russell “What’s in a name?”, Juliet asks, bending down the balcony where the name-forsaken Romeo ponders upon the same question until he forgets himself (“I know not how to tell thee who I am”) and is even prepared to shred himself to pieces – if he were nothing but a written word.1 Sadly, for Juliet and the rest of the plot, he forgets himself a second time, paradoxi- cally by remembering who he is. He stabs Tybalt to death, thus launching the sequence of events that lead to the tragedy. Likewise, King Richard III William Shakespeare’s, in a brief and melancholy moment of remorse, loses his name and his identity, but when he remembers it fondly (“Richard loves Richard, that is, I [am] I”2) the decisive battle for the country can begin – in which he meets his own death. Leaping forward in literary history, we hear Lewis Carroll’s Alice, Behind the Looking Glass, forgetting her name in the woods, but luckily she recalls it without an imminent tragedy jeopar- dizing the state of country: “Alice – Alice – I won’t forget it again.”3 Names are important: They help to define one’s own identity, and they locate a personality within a social, even cultural frame – names function as passports. They transport a lot of (semantic) extra-information about the respective bearer: especially in what E.M. -
Flann O'brien: Man of (Many) Letters, Man of Many Masks.”)
Title Page Flann O’Brien: An Exegesis of Satire by Allyn Reynolds BA in English Literature, University of Pittsburgh, 2019 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of University Honors College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2019 Committee Membership Page UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH UNIVERSITY HONORS COLLEGE This thesis/dissertation was presented by Allyn Reynolds It was defended on April 12, 2019 and approved by Dr. Amy Murray-Twyning, Lecturer II, Department of English Dr. Tony Novosel, Senior Lecturer, Department of History Dr. Jennifer Keating, Assistant Dean, Dietrich College of Carnegie Mellon University Thesis Advisor: Dr. Gayle Rogers, Associate Chair, Department of English ii Copyright © by Allyn Reynolds 2019 iii Abstract Flann O’Brien: An Exegesis of Satire Allyn Reynolds, BPhil University of Pittsburgh, 2019 The purpose of writing Flann O’Brien: An Exegesis of Satire was to illuminate how O’Brien uses political, religious, and social satire to destabilize identities. Satire is achieved through hyperbole, irony, and irreverent diction. Identities are exaggerated in the texts to reveal problematic aspects embedded within them. Some of O’Brien’s heavily satirized identities are nationalist, Gaelic, academic, and masculine identities. Troublesome components of these respective identities are revealed in order to improve said identity, which O’Brien is passionate about. O’Brien’s five novels were analyzed in how satire functioned and why; the result being he heavily criticized that which he was passionate about. His passion is revealed through his familial history, interviews with family members, and O’Brien’s personal letters. O’Brien, neglected in comparison to other Irish authors, brilliantly deconstructs identities in a “irreverent reverence” and should be respected for his metafictional works. -
At Swim-Two-Birds As Thanatography Kelly Anspaugh Who Killed James
Anspaugh 1 Agonizing with Joyce: At Swim-Two-Birds as Thanatography Kelly Anspaugh Who Killed James Joyce? That poor writer's end was hastened by that same intrusive apostrophe. --Myles Na gCopaleen, Cruiskeen Lawn A draft of this essay was delivered in 1989 to the panel session "Joyce and Flann O'Brien: Fifty Years of At Swim-Two-Birds," that panel being one among many at the international James Joyce conference, held that year in the city of brotherly love, Philadelphia. There is an irony at work here, one not without charm: the creature apparently most loathed by our self styled "ontological polymorph" Brian O'Nolan/Flann O'Brien/Myles na gCopaleen--especially by the last of the three--was the American Joyce scholar. That vasty archive which is Cruiskeen Lawn ("Full Little Jug," the column that Myles authored for the Irish Times for over twenty years) offers abundant evidence of this deep-seated antipathy. On 9 September 1949, for example, the "Plain People of Ireland" are warned of the "four thousand strong corps of American simpletons now in Dublin doing a thesis on James Joyce" (qtd. in Powell 53). On 7 July 1953 Myles reports that one such simpleton by the name of Richard Ellmann is in town to complete the "grim task" of writing a book on James Joyce (which book, of course, would, when published, come to be recognized not only as the biography of Joyce but also as the model of all modern literary biography); if Ellmann tries to contact him, Myles promises, "I guarantee that I will frighten the life out of him by the disclosure of the state of my mind" (qtd. -
A Critical Study of Flann O'brien's Early Novels ·
· . A CRITICAL STUDY OF FLANN O'BRIEN'S EARLY NOVELS · . Short Statement of Thesis This thesis is a study of Flann O'Brien's two early novels, At Swim-T'\tlo-Birds and The Third Policeman. TJIy aim has beGn to show ho '\'1' these tvlO novels pursue a similar end, namely, the question of identity, for the unnamed narrators of both books. In At Swim-Two-Birds, the narrator is a creative writer; for him, the \'J'riting of his novel is a working out of his interior process of self-analysis. In The Third Policeman, the narrator is a scholar and a critic, 'who writes his book as a record of things past; his identity is what is in question during the events in the st range world 1,.ihich he records. In both novels, O'Brien is also concerned with satirising conventional viel'ls of the purpose and use of literature, and my thesis also aims to show how this satire is related to the larger question of identity in each book. The Artist and the Critic; Flann O'Brien's novels At S\"lim-Two-Birds and The Third Policeman. by Philip Coulter Submitted in partial fulfi1ment of the requirements for the degree of Twlaster of' Arts. Departnent of' Eng1ish, NcGil1 University. 28 Ju1y 1971. •- - @ Philip Coulter 1971 i. Acknowledgements l should like to acknowledge the assistance of the fo1lowing individuals and organisations for their help to me in preparing this thesis. My research was made possible through a number of grants from the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research of McGi11 University. -
Flann O'brien
Flann O’Brien CONTESTING LEGACIES EDITED BY RUBEN BORG, PAUL FAGAN AND WERNER HUBER First published in 2014 by Cork University Press Youngline Industrial Estate Pouladuff Road, Togher Cork, Ireland © The Contributors 2014 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording or otherwise, without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying in Ireland issued by the Irish Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, 25 Denzille Lane, Dublin 2. The right of the contributors to be identified as authors of this Work has been asserted by them in accordance with Copyright and Related Rights Acts 2000 to 2007. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 978-78205-076-6 Typeset by Tower Books, Ballincollig, County Cork Printed in www.corkuniversitypress.com CONTENTS Acknowledgements vii Textual Note ix Notes on Contributors xi Editors’ introduction 1 RUBEN BORG, PAUL FAGAN, WERNER HUBER PART I: BROADENING THE CANON 1. Coming of the rails: the strange case of ‘John Dufy’s Brother’ 19 KEITH HOPPER 2. Irelands enough and time: Brian O’Nolan’s science fiction 33 JACK FENNELL 3. (Probably posthumous): the frame device in Brian O’Nolan’s short fiction 46 MARION QUIRICI 4. ‘I’ve got you under my skin’: ‘John Duffy’s Brother’, ‘Two in One’ and the confessions of Narcissus 60 PAUL FAGAN 5. Tall tales or ‘petites histoires’: history and the void in ‘The Martyr’s Crown’ and Thirst 76 THIERRY ROBIN PART II: INTER/NATIONAL CONTEXTS 6. -
Selected Bibliography Works by Flann O'brien Fiction an Beal Bocht. Dublin
Bibliography 1 Selected Bibliography Works by Flann O'Brien Fiction An Beal Bocht. Dublin: Dolmen, 1941. At Swim-Two-Birds. London: Longman's, 1939; Normal, IL: Dalkey Archive, 1998. The Dalkey Archive. London: MacGibbon and Kee, 1964; New York: Macmillan, 1965; London: Picador, 1976; Normal, IL: Dalkey Archive, 1993. The Hard Life. London: MacGibbon and Kee, 1961; New York: Penguin, 1977; Normal, IL: Dalkey Archive, 1994. The Poor Mouth. Trans. Patrick C. Power. London: Hart-Davis, MacGibbon, 1973; New York: Viking, 1974; London: Grafton, 1986; Normal,IL: Dalkey Archive, 1996. Stories and Plays. London: Hart-Davis, MacGibbon, 1973; London: Grafton, 1986. The Third Policeman. New York: NAL, 1976; Normal, IL: Dalkey Archive, 1999. The Various Lives of Keats and Chapman and the Brother. London: Hart-Davis MacGibbon, 1976; London: Paladin, 1990. Essays and Column Collections The Best of Myles. 1968; London: Pan, 1975; Normal, IL: Dalkey Archive, 1999.Further Cuttings from the Cruiskeen Lawn. London: Hart-Davis, 1976; Normal, IL: Dalkey Archive, 2000. The Hair of the Dogma. London: Hart-Davis, 1977. Myles Away from Dublin. London, New York: Granada, 1985. Myles Before Myles. London: Grafton, 1988. Books about Flann O'Brien Asbee, Sue. Flann O'Brien. Boston: Twayne, 1991. Booker, M. Keith. Flann O'Brien, Bakhtin, and Menippean Satire. Syracuse: Syracuse UP, 1995. Clissmann, Anne. Flann O'Brien: A Critical Introduction to His Writings. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1975; New York: Barnes, 1975. Costello, Peter, and Peter Van de Kamp. Flann O'Brien: An Illustrated Biography. London: Bloomsbury, 1987. Cronin, Anthony. No Laughing Matter: The Life and Times of Flann O'Brien. -
The University of Chicago Twentieth-Century Fantastic
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO TWENTIETH-CENTURY FANTASTIC: THE NOVEL AND THE RE-IMAGINATION OF HISTORY A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE DIVISION OF THE HUMANITIES IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE BY NELL PACH CHICAGO, ILLINOIS AUGUST 2018 Copyright © 2018 by Nell Pach All Rights Reserved Table of Contents Acknowledgments iv Abstract viii Introduction 1 Chapter One: Modernist Fantastic: Transforming and Re-imagining the Subject in Woolf and Joyce 31 Chapter Two: No Gist of It: Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman, “Echo’s Bones,” and Allegory- Resistant Magic 89 Chapter Three: The Blasphemous Fantastic: Unorthodox Miracles, Backtalk, and the Mischievous Divine Narrator in The Satanic Verses and Paradise 141 Chapter Four: Log In, Sign Out: Magical Virtual Reality in Thomas Pynchon and Karen Russell 183 Selected Bibliography 242 iii Acknowledgments This dissertation is a testament to the truly inestimable support, generosity, and surpassing love given freely to me by extraordinary people. While I cannot hope to make an exhaustive list of everyone who has, directly or indirectly, enabled me to complete this project, I make a start here in naming those whose presence allowed me to survive the work intact. This is no overstatement. To begin where I can never finish thanking, nor adequately express even a fraction of what they have been to me: thank you, thank you, thank you to my parents, Kathleen Megan and Peter Pach. Any attempt to fill in this thanks will be scattered and laughably incomplete. Mom and Dad, your guidance and unbelievable patience; your endless joy in my explorations and endeavors; your unstinting, selfless attention and support of every kind; and first and last your fierce love; bind me and my world together. -
Postmodern Writings of James Joyce, Flann O'brien, and Samuel Beckett Andrew V
Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2010 How the Irish Ended History: Postmodern Writings of James Joyce, Flann O'Brien, and Samuel Beckett Andrew V. McFeaters Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES HOW THE IRISH ENDED HISTORY: POSTMODERN WRITINGS OF JAMES JOYCE, FLANN O‘BRIEN, AND SAMUEL BECKETT By ANDREW V. MCFEATERS A Dissertation submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Degree Awarded: Summer Semester, 2010 The members of the committee approve the dissertation of Andrew V. McFeaters defended on April 30, 2010. ____________________________________ S.E. Gontarski Professor Directing Dissertation ____________________________________ William J. Cloonan University Representative ____________________________________ R.M. Berry Committee Member ____________________________________ Andrew Epstein Committee Member Approved: __________________________________________ R.M. Berry, Chair, Department of English The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members. ii For Eliezane, my muse, without whom I still would be sitting still on that sidewalk all those years ago. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Stan Gontarski for his inestimable support and guidance over the years. His many insights on the works of Samuel Beckett and James Joyce are the turning-points upon which the fire of intellect is fed. I thank, too, the other members of my committee: Ralph Berry, Andrew Epstein, and William Cloonan. Their advice and support has been of invaluable service to the growth of my work.