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1798 and the Irish National Tale Colleen Booker Halverson University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

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1798 and the Irish National Tale Colleen Booker Halverson University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee University of Wisconsin Milwaukee UWM Digital Commons Theses and Dissertations December 2012 Fragmented Histories: 1798 and the Irish National Tale Colleen Booker Halverson University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.uwm.edu/etd Part of the Comparative Literature Commons Recommended Citation Halverson, Colleen Booker, "Fragmented Histories: 1798 and the Irish National Tale" (2012). Theses and Dissertations. 53. https://dc.uwm.edu/etd/53 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by UWM Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of UWM Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FRAGMENTED HISTORIES: 1798 AND THE IRISH NATIONAL TALE by Colleen Booker Halverson A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English at The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee December 2012 ABSTRACT FRAGMENTED HISTORIES: 1798 AND THE IRISH NATIONAL TALE by Colleen Booker Halverson The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2012 Under the Supervision of Dr. José Lanters The 1798 rebellion radically transformed the social and political landscape of Ireland, but it would also have a dramatic impact on Anglo-Irish authors writing in its grim aftermath. Numerous critics have characterized the early Irish novel as “unstable” and suggest that the interruptions, the inverted, overlapping narratives, and the heteroglossia that pervade these novels are a by-product of these authors’ tumultuous times. These Anglo-Irish novels may appear as “unstable” texts, but their “instability,” I would argue, is a strategic maneuver, a critique of the idea of “stability” itself as it is presented through the “civilizing,” modernizing mission of imperialism. When the fighting ended and the paper war of the rising exploded in its wake, these authors became aware of two parallel but ultimately irreconcilable histories involving the rebellion: the dominant, “official” history as put forth by English and Ascendancy writers and the fractured, fragmented history of their memories. Their works do not just offer up an alternative view of the rising, but critique the very modes of historical representation that attempt to reconstruct it. I begin in my first chapter by looking closely at three works of non-fiction by written after the rising and show how these authors construct the rising as a Catholic ii conspiracy and in this way invents an Irish “Other” to the English that represents archaism, lawlessness, corruption, superstition, and backwardness. In chapter two, I argue that Maria Edgeworth complicates this gothic construction in her novel by troubling the discourse of the Catholic subaltern through the character Thady Quirk and Lady Geraldine. In chapter three, I show how Sydney Owenson resists dualistic constructions of Irishness that emerged after the rising and encourages indirect modes of resistance to break down the discourse surrounding Irish masculinity, and in chapter four I argue that Robert Maturin exploits the gothic construction of Irishness in The Milesian Chief, but troubles the emergence of a modern subject through the vampire figure in Melmoth the Wanderer. Ultimately, these writers use 1798 to pull apart boundaries, explode dualistic thinking, and ultimately to question the way we construct cultural identity in the midst of a contested, incomplete, and contradictory history. iii © Copyright by Colleen Booker Halverson, 2012 All Rights Reserved iv For Aaron, Skye, and Colin v TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction: 1798 and the Memory Crisis 1 Chapter 1: Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition: Sir Richard Musgrave’s 17 Memoirs of the Different Rebellions in Ireland, Irish Travel Writing, and the Emergence of Gothic Ireland Chapter 2: Two Farthing Candles: Misreadings and Misalignments in 56 Maria Edgeworth’s Castle Rackrent and Ennui Chapter 3: Owenson’s Ariels: The “Education” of Caliban in The O’Donnel 98 and The O’Briens and the O’Flahertys Chapter 4: The Irish Uncanny: The Return of the Repressed in 144 Charles Robert Maturin’s The Milesian Chief and Melmoth the Wanderer Afterword 185 Works Cited 191 Curriculum Vita 199 vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My father was a history buff and an amateur genealogist. While most families spent summer vacations at Disney World or on the beach, we spent them chasing ghosts on Civil War battlefields or making tombstone rubbings in crumbling graveyards in some back corner of an Illinois cornfield. But it’s to him and to my mother and her adventurous, never-say-die attitude that I owe so much of this dissertation. I thank my parents for instilling in me a love of history, of books, and knowledge, for never flinching when I said I wanted to go backpacking in Ireland, and for bailing me out when I ran out of money in the Glen and many times over. I also want to thank my best friend Mairin Barney for being there for me through the tears, the papers, the pints, the music, the Zen, the proposals, and the drafts. Loving literature is meaningless if you have no one to share that passion with, and I feel so lucky to have found a lifelong friend who is always there to reveal to me exactly what I’m looking for even in my darkest moments. I’m grateful to Dr. Brian Short for encouraging me to go “study Joyce” in Ireland, for taking me on board “the theory train,” and for being the mentor I needed at such a critical moment in my life. I hope I’ve done you proud, wherever you are. I also want to thank Dr. Donelle Ruwe for introducing me to Maria Edgeworth and the wild world of Irish Romanticism. Thank you for guiding me through the confusing world of academia, especially in the early years, and for giving me those awesome Donelle pep talks when I needed them the most. I also want to thank Dr. Jeff Berglund and Dr. Nancy Paxton for their incredible support and unending kindness. Dissertations can be lonely endeavors, and I also want to give a shout out to my February T&C gals and my homeys in 250 Words! for giving me a virtual outlet for all my mommy woes, my writing woes, and vii many times both. Thank you for being there for me on those late, late nights nursing babies and pushing deadlines. You were with me through it all, and I thank you so much for being with me on this journey. I am especially grateful to my wonderful doctoral committee: thank you to Dr. Ruth Schwertfeger for providing great historical and transcontinental contexts; Dr. Kristie Hamilton for her keen insights and positive support; and Dr. Kumkum Sangari for always asking the BIG question that changes everything. I’m deeply grateful to Andrew Kincaid for saying “yes” so many years ago, and for always challenging me to be better at this. I could not have written this dissertation without the support and guidance of my amazing adviser Dr. José Lanters. Thank you, José, for seeing something in me that I didn’t know I had, for introducing me to the scholar that I always wanted to become, and for showing me the way through this wilderness. Your meticulous reading, your painstaking comments, your unfailing guidance and support made all the difference. Thank you for having faith in me. Finally, I want to thank my wonderful husband Aaron and the two beautiful little people we made together, Skye and Colin. I dedicate this dissertation to you and to our children. Books, ink, notes, research—these are the sorts of things that create dissertations. But only love can make them possible. Thank you for filling my life with so much love. viii 1 Introduction 1798 and the Memory Crisis The 1798 uprising was one of the most violent events in Irish history. While the surge of revolutionary fervor was quickly quelled by British forces, the aftershocks of the rising would be felt for generations. Historians estimate the death toll in the tens of thousands,1 and political and economic suppressive measures after the rising devastated the country. When Maria Edgeworth returned to her home after the worst of the fighting of the rebellion was over, she wrote in a letter to her cousin, “The scenes we have gone through for some days past have succeeded one another like the pictures in a magic- lantern, and have scarcely left the impression of reality upon the mind. It all seems like a dream, a mixture of the ridiculous and the horrid” (62). For Edgeworth, nothing she could say could quite encompass the experience of revolution as the memory of the rising surfaced in her consciousness as flashes and fragments rather than a tidy narrative with a beginning, middle, and end. The 1798 rebellion radically transformed the social and political landscape of Ireland, but it would also have a dramatic impact on Anglo-Irish authors writing in its grim aftermath. Numerous critics have characterized the early Irish novel as “unstable” and suggest that the interruptions, the inverted, overlapping narratives, and the heteroglossia that pervade these novels are a by-product of these authors’ tumultuous times. These Anglo-Irish novels may appear as “unstable” texts, but their “instability,” I would argue, is a strategic maneuver, a critique of the idea of “stability” itself as it is presented through the “civilizing,” modernizing mission of imperialism. When the 1 For a more thorough discussion of casualties of the 1798 rebellion see Thomas Bartlett’s “Clemency and Compensation: the Treatment of Defeated Rebels and Suffering Loyalists After the 1798 Rebellion” in John Smyth’s Revolution, Counter-Revolution and Union: Ireland in the 1790s, page 100. 2 fighting ended and the paper war of the rising exploded in its wake, these authors became aware of two parallel but ultimately irreconcilable histories involving the rebellion: the dominant, “official” history as put forth by English and Ascendancy writers and the fractured, fragmented history of their memories.
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