Irish Children’s Literature and the Poetics of Memory, 1892-2016 A Thesis submitted to the School of English at the University of Dublin, Trinity College, for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. February 2019 Rebecca Ann Long I declare that this thesis has not been submitted as an exercise for a degree at this or any other university and it is entirely my own work. I agree to deposit this thesis in the University’s open access institutional repository or allow the Library to do so on my behalf, subject to Irish Copyright Legislation and Trinity College Library conditions of use and acknowledgement. _________________________________ Rebecca Long February 2019 TABLE OF CONTENTS SUMMARY………………………………………………………………………………..i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………………………....iii INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………....4 CHAPTER ONE: RETRIEVING……………………………………………………………………………29 CHAPTER TWO: RE- TELLING……………………………………………………………………………...…64 CHAPTER THREE: REMEMBERING……………………………………………………………………....106 CHAPTER FOUR: RE- IMAGINING………………………………………………………………………........158 CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………………..……..210 WORKS CITED………………………….…………………………………………………….....226 Summary This thesis explores the recurring patterns of Irish mythological narratives that influence literature produced for children in Ireland following the Celtic Revival and into the twenty- first century. A selection of children’s books published between 1892 and 2016 are discussed with the aim of demonstrating the development of a pattern of retrieving, re-telling, remembering and re-imagining myths over the recent history of Irish children’s literature. My methodology is underpinned by theories of narrative (Frye 1957, Le Guin 1979, Ong 1982, Bal 1997), memory (Bachelard 1969, Assmann 1970, Trigg 2011), landscape (Spirn 1998, Tilly 2010, Casey 2011) and identity (Appleyard 1992, Maybin 2005). In pursuing these critical themes, a set of aesthetic principles is formulated through which the presence of myth in Irish children’s literature, and how this presence influences the ways in which authors and readers construct meaning can be articulated. Using close readings to engage with texts from different periods in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the thesis argues for the primacy of myth and cultural heritage in Irish children’s literature. Accordingly, this thesis analyses, for the first time, the reciprocity between imagination, memory and experiences of childhood in Irish children’s literature and how these are mediated through mythological narratives. Chapter One explores the historical and cultural context of the Celtic Revival, and argues that within the Revival movement, the urge to retrieve Ireland’s lost heritage also stimulated a desire to re-tell the mythological narratives that constituted that heritage for children. The chapter looks at the writings of W.B. Yeats, George Russell, and Gavan Duffy. It also analyses three versions of the myth of Cuchulainn as re-told by Standish O’Grady, Eleanor Hull, and Lady Augusta Gregory. Chapter Two continues with an examination of the literature produced for children in the aftermath of the Celtic Revival. It argues that the particular cultural moment of the Celtic Revival, with its concerns regarding memory, myth and identity was the beginning of a specific movement involving authors who sought to re- tell Ireland’s mythological narratives for children, in order to restore and rejuvenate those narratives. This movement influenced the production of literature for children in the years following the Celtic Revival and this is demonstrated through an examination of texts by Alice Dease, Ella Young, Violet Russell, Padraic Colum, and James Stephens. The case is made for these texts being representative of a body of literature that was being created specifically for children, based on mythological narrative i Chapter Three is concerned with instances of remembering in texts produced for children in the middle of the twentieth century in Ireland. During this period, a transition begins wherein myths become integrated into everyday childhood experiences in Ireland where child figures have a knowledge of Ireland’s mythic paradigms and can operate knowingly within them. This is due largely to the presence of storytelling communities and the preservation of traditional narratives. Texts by Patricia Lynch, Una Kelly, Eilis Dillon and J.S. Andrews are analysed in order to examine the emergence of a new narrative register in Irish children’s literature that supports both mythic and domestic experiences. Chapter Four continues with the argument that in literature produced for children in the late twentieth century in Ireland, mythological narratives are comprehensively integrated into the fantasy genre, allowing authors to not only re-tell myths but to re-imagine them. These narratives tend to address a lack or imbalance in Irish society; symptoms of this kind of malaise include the child protagonists’ lack of cultural knowledge. Their quests then become journeys towards knowledge and recovery. The primacy of landscape in Irish children’s literature is especially visible in this period and in the texts by Pat O’Shea, Orla Melling, Jim O’Leary, Kate Thompson and Siobhan Dowd examined here. This chapter focuses on how contemporary representations of childhood become framing devices for re-imaginations of Irish mythological narratives and how paradigms of myth and memory are mediated through physical and metaphysical landscapes. This chapter also focuses on the broader cultural concern with issues of space, place, and myth in Irish society. My conclusion draws together the elements of retrieving, re-telling, remembering and re-imagining in a reflection on the pattern of mythological narratives that influences Irish children’s literature from the late nineteenth to the early twenty-first century. The conclusion also contains an analysis of works by Darragh Martin and Peader O’Guilin in an attempt to present an insight into the relationship between myth and childhood experience in contemporary Irish children’s literature. The conclusion is used to reflect on the ways in which the pattern outlined throughout the thesis produces examples of texts for children that deal with issues of time, landscape, identity and heritage by engaging with mythology, folklore and oral culture. ii Acknowledgements To my mother, Agnes Long, from whom all things came. Love and care and courage and honour and strength and books and words and power. The greatest of these things was love and I would not be who I am without her. I thank her for who she is. To Amanda Piesse, who changed my life with her words. I could not have asked for a more inspiring supervisor or a more wonderful friend. I thank her for the ways in which she has shown me that I can be better. To Jane Carroll, who held the torch for me before and took it up for me again. I thank her for the sharpness of her wit and the kindness of her heart. To Kara Furr, my braintwinner, my faraway one, who was there at the beginning and who has come so far with me. I thank her for the ways that she understands me. To Lou Gallagher, my brightheart confidante, who walked the path before me and left signs of hope along the way. I thank her for her steadfast love. To the Cohort, who exist as beautiful, strong, and wonderful women alone, and as a force to be reckoned with together. I thank them for their power. To Kathleen Keyes, whose heart is as big as the sky and full of love. I thank her for her dancing words. And to Fergal Keyes, my best friend in all the world, the one who changed everything. I thank him for the strength that he has shared with me. I thank him for the light that shines at the heart of him. I thank him for the love in his blue-sky eyes. iii Introduction Though I am old with wandering Through hollow lands and hilly lands, I will find out where she has gone, And kiss her lips and take her hands; And walk among long dappled grass, And pluck till time and times are done, The silver apples of the moon, The golden apples of the sun. “The Song of Wandering Aengus” by W.B. Yeats1 …where you could see Deeper into the country than you expected And discovered that the field behind the hedge Grew more distinctly strange as you kept standing Focused and drawn in by what barred the way. “Field of Vision” by Seamus Heaney2 Irish children’s literature is shaped by a pattern of recurring mythological and folkloric narratives.3 The narratives in this pattern carry and communicate images of cultural heritage which remain essentially the same, though their manifestations are continuously changing, with archetypes and stereotypes alike available to be re-imagined by succeeding generations of authors and readers. This re-imagination is discernible in texts that engage with mythological narratives, and with domestic narratives of childhood experience. This thesis investigates the presence and significance of cultural and mythological heritage in Irish children’s literature between 1892 and 2016. It analyses representative works by Standish O’Grady (1894), Eleanor Hull (1898), Augusta Gregory (1906), Alice Dease (1907), Ella Young (1910), Violet Russell (1913), Padraic Colum (1916), James Stephens (1920), Patricia Lynch (1934), Una Kelly (1945), Eilís Dillon 1 From The Wind Among the Reeds, 1899. 2 From Seeing Things, 1991. 3 By “Irish children’s literature” I mean literature produced (although not exclusively) for an audience of Irish children which articulates specifically Irish themes and concerns. For a more detailed definition of Irish children’s literature see Robert Dunbar’s article “Rarely Pure and Never Simple: The World of Irish Children’s Literature” The Lion and the Unicorn 21.3, September 1997, pp. 309-321. 4 (1952), J.S. Andrews (1969), Pat O’Shea (1985), Orla Melling (1986), Jim O’Leary (1993), Kate Thompson (2005), Siobhan Dowd (2008), Darragh Martin (2013), and Peader O’Guilin (2016). In this analysis, these texts function as examples of the ways in which Irish children’s literature uses myth to engage with issues of landscape, time and identity across the decades of the late nineteenth, twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.