Études irlandaises

34.2 | 2009 Figures de l'intellectuel en Irlande Representations of the Intellectual in Ireland

Maurice Goldring et Carle Bonafous-Murat (dir.)

Édition électronique URL : http://journals.openedition.org/etudesirlandaises/1456 DOI : 10.4000/etudesirlandaises.1456 ISSN : 2259-8863

Éditeur Presses universitaires de Caen

Édition imprimée Date de publication : 30 septembre 2009 ISBN : 978-2-7535-0982-5 ISSN : 0183-973X

Référence électronique Maurice Goldring et Carle Bonafous-Murat (dir.), Études irlandaises, 34.2 | 2009, « Figures de l'intellectuel en Irlande » [En ligne], mis en ligne le 02 février 2012, consulté le 22 septembre 2020. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/etudesirlandaises/1456 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/ etudesirlandaises.1456

Ce document a été généré automatiquement le 22 septembre 2020.

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SOMMAIRE

Introduction Maurice Goldring et Carle Bonafous-Murat Maurice Goldring et Carle Bonafous-Murat (éd.)

Richard Lovell Edgeworth, or the paradoxes of a “philosophical” life Isabelle Bour

A Panacea for the Nation : Berkeley’s Tar-water and Irish Domestic Development Scott Breuninger

“Is that the word ?” Samuel Beckett and the Port-Royal Philosophy of Language Mélanie Foehn

Aristotle’s concept of energeia in Autumn Journal by Louis MacNeice, poet, classics scholar and intellectual Mélanie White

Emblems of his early adversity : Conor Cruise O’Brien and France Diarmuid Whelan

From Visionary to Functionary: Representations of Irish intellectuals in the debate on “Europe” Katy Hayward

Intellectual Imposters ? – We Should be so Lucky ! Towards an Irish Public Sphere Eugene O’Brien

Comptes rendus de lecture

Dramatis Personae & Other Writings Television Plays High Pop Sophie Lecerf

L’Homme à la cape Bernard Escarbelt

Tar Éis a Bháis Clíona Ní Ríordáin

Stepping Stones Franck Miroux

Seamus Heaney Clíona Ní Ríordáin

Palabras Extremas: Escritoras Gallegas e Irlandesas de Hoy Katharina Walter

Seamus Heaney and the Emblems of Hope Jessica Stephens

Ciaran Carson Elisabeth Delattre

Northern Irish Literature Martine Pelletier

Flann O’Brien Flore Coulouma

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Homo Famelicus Martine Pelletier

Sir Walter Ralegh in Ireland Catherine Maignant

Ireland’s Misfortune Nathalie Sebbane

The Impact of the 1916 Rising Among the Nations Ronan Barré

L’ordre d’Orange en Ulster Philippe Cauvet

Northern Ireland Dominique Jeannerod

Irish History Philippe Cauvet

L’Irlande Patricia Fournier-Noël

Tuned Out. Traditional Music and Identity in Northern Ireland Grace Tempany

The Great Community: Culture and Nationalism in Ireland Olivier Coquelin

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Introduction

Maurice Goldring et Carle Bonafous-Murat Maurice Goldring et Carle Bonafous-Murat (éd.)

1 L’époque est terminée où les mouvements nationalistes, lorsqu’ils étaient écoutés, ou les partis communistes, quand ils étaient forts, entretenaient des relations privilégiées avec les étudiants, les créateurs, les avant-gardes intellectuelles. Les mouvements terroristes n’ont plus de relations organiques avec les « grands » intellectuels de notre temps. Il n’y a pas d’intellectuels républicains, ou soutiens de l’ETA. Il n’y a pas de poète du terrorisme, ni des fous de Dieu. On ne trouvera pas dans les poésies de Bobby Sands les prémisses d’une nouvelle renaissance littéraire et il faudrait un singulier effort pour comparer les peintures murales de Belfast à la Chapelle Sixtine.

2 Les mouvements qui perdent leurs relations avec les intellectuels perdent pied dans la société dans son ensemble. Par leur formation, leur naissance, leurs capacités apprises et développées, les intellectuels mettent en forme, ils révèlent ce que la société ne sait pas sur elle-même. Un mouvement qui se coupe des relations privilégiées avec les activités intellectuelles est condamné au sommeil de la raison.

3 Malgré tout persiste dans certaines œuvres la nostalgie des grandes épopées des luttes nationales et sociales, d’autant plus vive qu’elle est à contre-courant. On la retrouve chez Ken Loach qui dans, Le Vent se lève, n’en finit pas de regretter l’absence de Che Guevara et de Fidel Castro des terres irlandaises. Mais dans les sociétés marquées jadis par des conflits qui accaparaient les énergies, l’heure est à la démobilisation, à la laïcisation du politique, au dépassement des frontières culturelles du conflit. En Irlande du Nord et au Pays basque, se sont mis en place des gouvernements apparemment contre nature réunissant nationalistes et loyalistes, socialistes et parti populaire, mais ayant pour point commun l’acceptation de principe que la violence militaire doit être éradiquée. Cette acceptation passe par des mesures de police, et par la prépondérance de valeurs politiques acceptées par tous. Une société en guerre est une société où l’on donnera soutien et assistance à des clandestins armés. Une société en paix est une société où l’on dénonce à la police ceux qui utilisent pour des objectifs politiques la violence armée dans une démocratie. C’est le pacte qui unit les forces politiques contradictoires. Il a été respecté en Irlande du Nord. Quand des républicains dissidents sont passés à l’action, les responsables du Sinn Fein ont appelé la communauté

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nationaliste à dénoncer les coupables des attentats. Une position de principe qui a contribué à la démilitarisation définitive des paramilitaires loyalistes.

4 La démilitarisation du politique passe aussi par des mesures symboliques, culturelles. Les chants de guerre sont désormais interdits dans les cérémonies officielles. Les portraits des « héros » de la résistance sont décrochés. Les uniformes ont des boutons neufs où il n’y a ni portrait de la Reine, ni la harpe irlandaise. Cette liquidation est d’une grande force symbolique, car elle élimine les insignes, les témoins visuels, les musiques, les images, qui font l’identité à laquelle la communauté est fortement attachée quand elle se sent menacée dans son existence même. Ainsi se trouvent ébranlées les traditions qui ont forgé certaines voix intellectuelles d’antan.

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5 De par son titre anglais, « Representations of the Intellectual in Ireland », ce numéro spécial de la revue Études irlandaises n’est pas sans rappeler, à dessein, l’ouvrage séminal d’Edward W. Said : Representations of the Intellectual. Fruit des conférences prononcées en 1993 sur les ondes de la BBC dans le cadre des Reith lectures, Said, tout en prenant acte des critiques qui lui avaient été adressées avant même qu’elles ne soient diffusées1, tentait de définir la ligne de partage entre l’expert et l’intellectuel :

The problem for the intellectual is not so much, as Carey discusses2, mass society as a whole, but rather the insiders, experts, coteries, professionals who in the modes defined earlier this century by pundit Walter Lippmann3 mold public opinion, make it conformist, encourage a reliance on a superior little band of all-knowing men in power. Insiders promote special interests; but intellectuals should be the ones to question patriotic nationalism, corporate thinking, and a sense of class, racial or gender privilege4.

6 Au contraire, toujours selon Said, il incombe à l’intellectuel de dépasser non seulement les intérêts partisans qui s’attachent à la défense inconditionnelle d’une cause idéologique, mais plus encore, en ces temps voués à la spécialisation des savoirs, le point de vue forcément partiel (voire partial) de ceux qui prétendent avoir un droit à la parole publique au nom de leur connaissance approfondie des enjeux, pour atteindre une forme d’universalité qu’il définit, dans une perspective kantienne, à la fois comme un dépassement des coordonnées propres à tout individu, mais également comme un moment de retour sur soi-même. Aucun intellectuel ne peut prétendre porter un jugement éthique sur le comportement humain sans, dans le même mouvement, s’interroger sur la cohérence de sa propre démarche :

Universality means taking a risk in order to go beyond easy certainties provided us by our background, language, nationality, which so often shield us from the reality of others. […] Whether you are an academic, or a bohemian essayist, or a consultant to the Defense Department, you do what you do according to a representation you have of yourself as doing that thing: do you think of yourself as providing ‘objective’ advice for pay, or do you believe that what you teach your students has truth value, or do you think of

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yourself as a personality advocating an eccentric but consistent perspective5?

7 Pour Said, ce n’est pas la fonction, pas même la fonction professorale, qui détermine le statut d’intellectuel dans une société donnée, mais la capacité à se mettre à la place de l’autre. Entre le technocrate qui monnaye sa pensée et l’intellectuel qui se pense lui- même en tout être humain, peut dès lors prendre place une large palette de représentations intermédiaires : ceux qui expriment la culture collective d’une communauté dans les sons, les images, les lettres, les croyances, sont des intellectuels organiques. Ils contribuent à la cohésion de la société en transmettant des valeurs collectives, ce sont des instituteurs, des prêtres, des responsables politiques ; ou des chanteurs de bal populaire. Les personnes qui inventent des formes, des idées nouvelles, des sons discordants, des images dérangeantes, sont pour leur part des inventeurs, des défricheurs. En créant, ils s’arrachent à la culture collective, et en sont parfois chassés. Les grands mouvements populaires portaient de grands intellectuels. Intellectuels nationalistes ou nationaux – W. B. Yeats, Maxime Gorki, Pablo Neruda, Aragon…

8 Le positionnement d’un intellectuel n’est pas une somme de positions : elle est le résultat d’un cheminement, souvent fait de ruptures. Les chemins de la rupture des intellectuels avec leur communauté politique culturelle, sociale ou ethnique sont divers. Le modèle en serait Galilée. Ainsi, d’éminents savants ont quitté le communisme parce qu’ils doutaient de la théorie de Lyssenko, le biologiste officiel de Staline. Joyce, Sean O’Casey, Beckett ont quitté l’Irlande politique parce que leurs conceptions artistiques étaient plus fortes que leur attachement à ce pays. Mais la rupture est d’abord politique et se manifeste par des crises brutales. Yeats se battit pour Synge avec une ardeur égale à celle qu’il mit à défendre les mécènes anglo-irlandais contre les philistins irlandais.

9 Yeats, Joyce, Beckett ou O’Casey, mais aussi Swift ou Wilde, étaient-ils pour autant des intellectuels irlandais ? À lire Said, il semble qu’il y ait quelque contradiction à postuler que l’intellectuel tend vers l’universalité puis à accoler au terme un adjectif de nationalité. On pourra en effet arguer du fait que l’exil, véritable ou imaginaire, est constitutif du cheminement intellectuel : que Yeats ne soit jamais réellement parti, à la différence de certains de ses compatriotes, ne change rien à l’affaire, car il fut, pour reprendre la formule de Seamus Heaney, un émigré de l’intérieur6, dont la dissidence prend d’autant plus le relief d’une cassure qu’elle se dessina progressivement, à la suite d’une adhésion plus ou moins enthousiaste aux valeurs de la Renaissance celtique. Beckett et Joyce suivirent le chemin inverse : ils se tinrent d’emblée à l’écart de leurs contemporains, avant que de s’exiler physiquement, puis de revenir vers l’Irlande par leur écriture. Leurs textes polémiques restent de ce point de vue des documents irremplaçables dans l’histoire des intellectuels en Irlande, et des représentations diversifiées que celle-ci offre.

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10 Dans une très large mesure, les différents articles qui composent ce numéro brossent effectivement le portrait de figures, c’est-à-dire tout à la fois d’individus isolés, mais aussi d’êtres exemplaires de par leur engagement à un moment donné de l’histoire : pris séparément, Berkeley, Edgeworth, Beckett, MacNeice ou Conor Cruise O’Brien,

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pour ne citer que quelques-uns des noms qui font ici l’objet d’un examen approfondi, dessinent moins une classe, une composante de la société, voire un type, qu’une série de cas. Sans doute faut-il voir là une illustration supplémentaire du constat que faisait déjà, il y a près de quinze ans, Liam O’Dowd dans son introduction à On Intellectuals and Intellectual Life in Ireland, à savoir que l’Irlande, à la différence de la France par exemple, ou des pays d’Europe de l’est, n’a jamais constitué un terrain d’étude propice à une analyse systématique de la figure de l’intellectuel. L’intellectuel se décline au singulier en Irlande, notamment parce que le matériau choisi par les chercheurs du domaine laisse entrevoir la façon dont en Irlande chaque intellectuel fait de ses expériences personnelles, ou au mieux de ses souvenirs de famille, la base d’une réflexion sur la collectivité nationale tout entière :

To date, social scientists have largely neglected the systematic study of Irish intellectuals and intellectual life. Certainly, much raw material exists for such studies. The autobiographies, biographies and writings of ‘universal’ (frequently literary) intellectuals are often works of sociological imagination in that they conflate their own personal and family history with that of the country as a whole7.

11 Cette sociologie de l’intellectuel irlandais que O’Dowd appelait de ses vœux se heurterait donc en Irlande à une vision polarisée de la société, où il n’existe apparemment pas de degrés intermédiaires entre la sphère familiale et la sphère nationale :

Indeed, one French observer suggests that the prevalence of this form of personalised intellectualism distinguishes Ireland from countries such as France, England and America, where the emphasis is on schools of thought. He suggests that the close identification of personal narratives with those of the country continues a tradition of gaol-journals and journals in exile, which are so familiar in Irish tradition. He goes on to observe: ‘Ireland is a country where history is autobiographical and autobiography is historical. It is an indication as to the way in which a man of letters considers his status in the country’8.

12 En d’autres termes, comme le révèlent chacun à leur manière les articles de Katy Hayward et de Eugene O’Brien, se pose aujourd’hui en Irlande la question de l’existence d’un espace intermédiaire entre la famille et l’État-nation, d’une sphère publique de débat où la voix de certains penseurs puisse être entendue avec une netteté particulière. Le présupposé selon lequel, dans la société irlandaise, les écrivains irlandais ont toujours joué un rôle de relais entre la sphère privée et la sphère politique, a peut-être en réalité masqué l’absence de contre-pouvoir à la sphère spécialisée du politique ou des media, mais aussi le fait qu’une partie de la population, qui resterait à identifier avec précision, n’a pas trouvé de porte-parole au sein de l’intelligentsia littéraire.

13 Aujourd’hui le terme « intellectuel » n’a plus guère de résonance dans les sociétés européennes occidentales. L’Irlande ne fait pas exception à la règle, mais dans ce cas précis se pose une alternative : s’agit-il d’un recul participant d’un désenchantement généralisé à l’égard du politique, ou est-ce l’expression d’une défiance plus

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fondamentale à l’égard des solutions théoriques. En d’autres termes, dans le champ intellectuel, l’Irlande doit-elle se chercher des points de comparaison du côté de la France, jadis qualifiée de paradis des intellectuels, ou de la Grande-Bretagne, dont l’anti-intellectualisme constitue pratiquement un trait définitoire de l’identité nationale. Comme le rappelle Stefan Collini dans Absent Minds – Intellectuals in Britain, ce déni de surface masque en réalité l’existence d’une abondante littérature sur la question :

One of the lesser objects I hope this book will achieve is to document the existence in Britain of a rich tradition of debate about the question of intellectuals: there is indeed an extensive relevant literature, and it may well surprise some readers to learn just how commonly the term ‘intellectuals’ itself has been employed by British writer. It remains true, of course, that denial of the existence of intellectuals, or of ‘real’ intellectuals, has been and to some extent continues to be a prominent aspect of national self-definition, but it follows that this tradition of denial must itself then become an object of historical and critical attention9.

14 Paradis aujourd’hui en jachère ou enfer : de quel côté situer l’Irlande10 ? Ou existe-t-il une troisième voie spécifiquement irlandaise ? Telle est la question centrale qui sous- tend les articles de ce numéro.

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15 Celui-ci, on l’espère, amorcera quelques pistes de recherche nouvelles dans la réflexion sur les intellectuels en Irlande : le lien possible avec la figure du philosophe à la française à une époque où le concept d’intellectuel n’existe pas (Isabelle Bour), l’existence d’un courrant souterrain de libre-pensée dans l’œuvre littéraire de Beckett (Mélanie Foehn), ou la place véritable de la théorie critique française (la French theory) parmi les modèles opératoires possibles d’une réflexion sur la sphère publique en Irlande (Eugene O’Brien), laissent entrevoir, nous semble-t-il, des directions qui demandent à être explorées plus avant.

16 Une lacune traverse néanmoins ce volume : celle de l’intellectuelle, au féminin, dont les figures, pourtant relativement nombreuses dans l’histoire irlandaise, restent ici curieusement absentes. Dans un pays où les femmes devaient être au service de la cause nationale, et où s’est développée une véritable mythologie moderne de la mère ou de l’épouse aimante et fidèle, s’appuyant à l’occasion sur quelques images iconiques (infirmières soignant les blessés, pleureuses aux enterrements, Pénélopes austères attendant le retour d’un mari emprisonné ou en fuite), la figure de l’intellectuelle a pu apparaître comme une charge lourde à porter. Il est un fait que les théoriciennes du féminisme ou les militantes n’ont que rarement eu des rapports harmonieux avec le nationalisme et le mouvement ouvrier en Irlande. À l’inverse, l’on peut noter que les intellectuels déviants ont souvent été décrits comme des personnalités fragiles, féminisés, ayant des préoccupations étrangères au peuple, par quoi il fallait entendre bien souvent les préoccupations masculines. Dans toute société placée sous le joug d’une idéologie dominante, religieuse ou politique, l’activité intellectuelle est comparée à l’activité sexuelle, et doit, comme cette dernière, être strictement contrôlée.

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17 Nous formons le vœu que de nouvelles études sur les liens, à la fois historiques et figurés, entre les femmes et les intellectuels, viennent à l’avenir enrichir les contours des figures de l’intellectuel en Irlande esquissés par ce numéro.

NOTES

1. « Commenting on the announced themes of my Reith lectures – Representations of the Intellectual – a sympathetic journalist states that it was a most ‘un-English’ thing to talk about. » In Edward W. Said, Representations of the Intellectual – The 1993 Reith Lectures, London, Vintage, 1993, « Introduction », p. X. 2. John Carey, The Intellectual and the Masses: Pride and Prejudice among the Literary Intelligentsia 1880-1939, London, Faber, 1992. 3. Journaliste d’opinion, Walter Lippmann (1889-1974) collabora notamment à World et au New York Herald Tribune. Il fut conseiller du Président Wilson, et participa aux négociations du Traité de Versailles. Il est l’auteur de plusieurs ouvrages, dont Public Opinion (1922). 4. Said, Representations of the Intellectual, p. xii. 5. Ibid., p. XII-XIII. 6. “I am neither internee nor informer;/An inner émigré, grown long-haired / And thoughtful” (Seamus Heaney, “Fosterage”, in North, London, Faber, 1975, p. 67). 7. Liam O’Dowd, “Intellectuals and intelligentsia: a sociological introduction”, in On Intellectuals and Intellectual Life in Ireland: International, Comparative and Historical Context, ed. Liam O’Dowd, Belfast, Institute of Irish Studies, 1996, p. 5. 8. Maurice Goldring, Faith of our Fathers: A Study of Irish Nationalism, Dublin, Repsol, 1987, p. 9-10. Cité in O’Dowd (ed.), On Intellectuals and Intellectual Life in Ireland, p. 5. 9. Stefan Collini, « Introduction: The Question of Intellectuals », Absent Minds – Intellectuals in Britain, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006, p. 1-2. 10. Dans son compte rendu critique du livre de Brian Fanning : The Quest for Modern Ireland – The Battle of Ideas 1912-1986 (Dublin & Portland, Irish Academic Press, 2008), Dáire Keogh note de la même façon que l’idée selon laquelle l’expression « intellectuel irlandais » a toutes les apparences d’un oxymore, ne serait finalement qu’une projection des présupposés qui s’attachent aux représentations de l’intellectuel en Grande-Bretagne, présupposés battus en brèche par l’ouvrage de Collini. Voir Dáire Keogh, « A world of ideas saved by the “Bell” and the Jesuits », The Irish Times, Saturday, November 22, 2008.

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AUTEURS

MAURICE GOLDRING Université Vincennes-Saint-Denis – Paris 8

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Richard Lovell Edgeworth, or the paradoxes of a “philosophical” life

Isabelle Bour

It has often occurred to us […] that there is universally something presumptuous in provincial genius, and that it is a very rare felicity to meet with a man of talents out of the metropolis, who does not overrate himself and his coterie prodigiously. In the West of England in particular, there has been a succession of authors, who […] have fancied that they were born to effect some mighty revolution in the different departments to which they applied themselves. We need only run over the names of Darwin, Day, Beddoes, Southey, Coleridge, and Priestley to make ourselves perfectly intelligible. It is […] chiefly, we believe, for want of that wholesome discipline of derision to which everything is subjected in London […]. There is something […] in the perpetual presence of the more permanent aristocracies of wealth, office, and rank which […] teaches aspiring men to measure their own importance by a more extended standard1.

1 In this outrageous statement – all the more outrageous as it came from a Scotsman – a leading intellectual authority of the early years of the nineteenth century, Francis Jeffrey, editor of the Edinburgh Review, inextricably links intellectual achievement and the je ne sais quoi generated by the presence of the metropolitan Establishment. This kind of social prejudice forecloses the acknowledgement of the “intellectual”, or indeed of the “philosopher”, as a valid categorical ascription. Of course, the word « intellectual » was not used as a noun in a sense akin to its modern one until 18132, and

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it did not become current in this sense until the closing decades of the nineteenth century. But the point is that Jeffrey implicitly denied that an important thinker or a philosophe often alienated from metropolitan élites such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau had been, could have achieved in Great Britain the recognition he had in France.

2 Francis Jeffrey does not mention Richard Lovell Edgeworth, but he might have, as the men he names were either members of the Lunar Society – Erasmus Darwin, Thomas Day, Joseph Priestley – or had some connection with it3. Those men had very different specialities, from botany (Darwin) to medicine (Beddoes), chemistry, rhetoric and theology (Priestley), politics and children’s literature (Day), and poetry (Southey and Coleridge). Clearly, however, in Jeffrey’s mind, they belong to the same kind: they are men with excessive intellectual ambitions of some sort or other.

3 Richard Lovell Edgeworth (1744-1817) would have seemed superlatively provincial to Jeffrey, as he was Anglo-Irish, and only occasionally visited England after he decided to settle on his County Longford estate in 1782. Yet, he has a place in the intellectual history of the British Isles, primarily as an educationalist, but also as an inventor, a politician and an improving landlord. This essay will not try to project modern definitions of the intellectual onto the achievements of Richard Lovell Edgeworth, but will examine the major aspects of his intellectual career, bringing out the paradoxes and tensions in it, to argue that it embodies and illustrates the tensions and ruptures in the intellectual life of the British Isles at the turn of the nineteenth century.

The “mechanic” and the scholar

4 Edgeworth belonged to the Lunar Society of Birmingham from 1766, that is to say that he joined it in its second year of existence. He explains in his Memoirs that he also belonged to an informal London gathering of men of learning, which he calls the society of Slaughter’s Coffee House, and whose distinguished members included John Hunter, Joseph Banks and Captain Cook4. It is clear that, in his mind, these two societies were not radically different, though twenty-first-century scholars would say that the Birmingham Lunar Society was much more concerned with the technological applications of science than the London coffee house society. Indeed, of the members of the Birmingham Lunar Society, who met at Matthew Boulton’s house, Edgeworth says that they were “men of very different characters, but all devoted to literature and science5” and the London society he defines as a “literary society6”. The great difference we perceive between those two groups has to do with the increasing differentiation among fields of knowledge which took place from the turn of the nineteenth century and with the attendant widening gap between the meanings of the words “literature” and “science”. To Edgeworth, “literature” still meant polite learning, and “science” was knowledge acquired by study as well as experimental science7. The porousness and flexibility of the concepts is confirmed by his definition of a “literary society” : in such a society, he says, “the first hints of discoveries, the current observations, and the mutual collision of ideas, are of important utility8”. Edgeworth much enjoyed the collaboration, the mutual help which were defining features of those societies. Such was his altruistic interest in the progress of knowledge that he did not resent other people’s appropriating his ideas or building on them to effect a discovery. As his daughter Maria puts it in the second volume of his memoirs which she wrote up after his death, “he was careless about fame, to a degree that would

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hardly be believed by those, who are jealous of every petty rivalship of invention, and who raise the cry of plagiary at the appearance of every resemblance or coincidence of ideas9”.

5 Edgeworth was particularly interested in mechanics. Over the years, he worked on and designed carriages, carriage wheels, sailing carriages, an improved road surfacing, an early form of the semaphore telegraph, among other things – his home, Edgeworthstown, was full of the results of his “mechanical” ingenuity and that of some of his children. What had started as the desultory research of a dilletante in his youth was “in more mature years” “pursued in the patient spirit of philosophical investigation, and turned to good account for the real business of life, and for the advancement of science10”. With him, there was never any split between theory and practice. Though, as Talcott Parsons reminds us, “the experimental method necessitated technological operations, and the gentleman was not permitted, except for those of arms, to ‘work with his hands’11”, Richard Lovell Edgeworth, who was the only gentleman among the members of the Lunar Society12 – insofar as he was the only landowner – never thought that practical work was demeaning. Indeed, in the first speech he made in the House of Commons of Ireland on 6th February, 1800, he stated trenchantly: “One manufacturer is worth more than twenty squires13”.

6 While Edgeworth, thanks to his direct and epistolary contacts with men such as Matthew Boulton and James Watt, was abreast of the most modern science, he was also a very good classicist, having had the education essentially focused on Latin grammar, rhetoric and “themes” which was still current in the second half of the eighteenth century. He describes his introduction to “ancient learning” as “[o]ne of the great eras in a boy’s life14”. He would often quote Latin verse in his letters to Thomas Day and Erasmus Darwin. Despite his interest in “experimental philosophy”, he never deprecated the classics, and thought that they should go on figuring prominently in the education of future gentlemen. As Alice Paterson comments, from a twentieth-century standpoint, Edgeworth seems “to have combined in the oddest way a passion for mechanics with a love of classical literature15”. He appears, at one point, to have carried the taste for disputatio to extremes. Thomas Day was a precise and relentless dialectician, and Maria Edgeworth comments that “[d]uring his intimacy with Mr Day, he adopted, perhaps, too much of his friend’s taste for arguments; experience convinced him, that these protracted discussions seldom ended in any satisfactory conclusion, either to the understanding or to the temper16”.

7 Earlier on, she evoked “his earnestness to arrive at truth17”. Indeed, ultimately, Richard Lovell Edgeworth, in his sensible rationality and thirst for knowledge, matches closely the definition of the philosophe given in the Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers18:

Le philosophe […] démêle les causes autant qu’il est en lui, & souvent même les prévient, & se livre à elles avec connoissance : c’est une horloge qui se monte, pour ainsi dire, quelquefois elle-même. Ainsi il évite les objets qui peuvent lui causer des sentimens qui ne conviennent ni au bien-être, ni à l’être raisonnable, & cherche ceux qui peuvent exciter en lui des affections convenables à l’état où il se trouve. […] la raison détermine le philosophe.

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The disciple of Rousseau and the Baconian empiricist

8 As Richard Lovell Edgeworth candidly recounts in his Memoirs, Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Emile (1762) made a great impression upon his “young mind”. He explains that he was attracted by the novelty of it, its eloquence and its “plausible ideas”, which contrasted with the “deficiencies and absurdities19” of the standard education of boys. At twenty- three already Richard Lovell Edgeworth was a man to act upon his convictions and thus, with the agreement of his first wife, he undertook to leave the “body and mind” of his eldest son Richard, born in 1764, “as much as possible to the education of nature and of accident20”. Just as candidly, he admits that while, at the age of seven or eight, Richard was very hardy and bold, he “shewed an invincible dislike to control21”. In order to try and make his son more manageable, when Edgeworth went to France in 1771, he sent his son to the school of the Oratorian brothers in Lyon! This was only after taking young Richard to Rousseau in Paris for him to judge of the success of his course of education. Rousseau approved of Richard and was gracious enough to remark that, unlike what he had written in Emile, history could be profitably taught to young children, but he also pointed out that young Richard was excessively proud of all things English.

9 Always honest and outspoken, Richard Lovell Edgeworth repeatedly says in his memoirs that Rousseau’s educational system is misguided. Edgeworth learnt from his mistakes, and when, with his second wife Honora, he decided to embark on a systematic course of education for his growing family (he had twenty-two children in all, from four different wives), he left dogma and primitivism behind, and decided to adopt a Baconian approach to education. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he became a radical empiricist who now maintained that there is no such thing as “natural genius” – innate predispositions – and that a child’s personality and knowledge are the result of his upbringing and schooling only. Edgeworth devotes most of the preface to his Essays on Professional Education (1808) to trying to prove that point; he now advises against letting children develop freely their supposed natural abilities. In the course of the home education which his children received, he and his wife, from 1778 onwards, would make notes on the children’s progress, and those would provide the empirical basis for steering their course of study in particular directions. This first- hand experience of the education of children provided the material for the very innovative educational treatise Practical Education, published in 1798, the joint work of Richard Lovell and his daughter Maria. They state in the preface: “To make any progress in the art of education, it must be patiently reduced to an experimental science […] we lay before the public the result of our experiments, and in many instances the experiments themselves22.” As a Member of the last Irish Parliament, and a member of the committee of the Board of Education, Edgeworth made a speech on the education of children from the lower classes, which was reported in the press; in it he made very similar points, still informed by the disastrous Rousseauian experiment with his eldest son: On this subject there was vast room for speculation; he did not signify by the word speculation, any wild new theory; he meant to proceed on matter of fact, on the deduction of facts accurately ascertained; this was the right difference between theory and practice, and in it consisted that true useful speculation which was founded in experience. It was by collecting a number of facts in any case, and by

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drawing deductions from them, that mankind were properly directed in scientific and moral pursuits23.

10 This might be a very brief summary of Francis Bacon’s inductive epistemology as expounded in The Advancement of Learning and Novum Organum. And, indeed, Maria Edgeworth proudly says: “I claim for my father the merit of having been the first to recommend, both by example and precept, what Bacon would call the experimental method in education24”.

11 In the long term, Practical Education was a very influential educational treatise, but initially it was well received only in liberal circles, because 1798 “was not a year for welcoming progressive books25”, with the French Wars going on and the general suspicion towards advanced ideas of any kind. Apart from its empirical approach to learning, Practical Education was remarkable for the breadth of topics included in the curriculum – traditional subjects like ancient literature, chronology and history, but also modern subjects such as chemistry and mechanics; the book also discussed moral education, and asked fundamental questions about the balance between memory and invention.

12 Edgeworth’s ideas were new both in their quality, “defined as acceptance or rejection of the axio-normative (or value and norm) structures of given systems of thought” and in scope, understood as “the broadening of the area of discussion through the addition of genuinely new or at least newly relevant knowledge26”. The Dissenting Academies, earlier in the century, had already “modernised” the curriculum by including science and practical subjects into it, but the actual pedagogy was not grounded in first-hand experience systematised into learning methods. Edgeworth, apart from his pedagogical experience with his children, used the familiarity with various aspects of science, technology and industry he had acquired in his years as a member of the Lunar Society.

13 Where Edgeworth ultimately went back to Rousseau, or perhaps never moved away from him, was in the strong individualistic slant of his educational theory. Each child received an education specific to himself. Being in favour of home education, Edgeworth never considered the dynamics of class teaching. He was such an upholder of individual education that, at least at the time when Practical Education was published, he thought that there should be very little contact among the children of the same family, as such contact could only undermine the work done by the tutor or tutors. “Children should not be educated for the society of children; nor should they live in that society during their education”, he wrote27. On this point, as on others, as his daughter is at pains to emphasise at the end of the Memoirs, he changed his mind, and partly gave up his a priori notions : My father became thoroughly convinced, that the separation of children in a family may lead to evils, greater than any partial good that can result from it. The attempt may induce artifice and disobedience on the part of the children; the separation can scarcely be effected; and if it were effected, would tend to make the children miserable. He saw, that their little quarrels, and the crossings of their tempers and fancies, are nothing in comparison with the inestimable blessings of that fondness, that family affection, which grows up among children, who have with each other an early and constant community of pleasures and pains28.

14 Though claiming to be a thorough-going empiricist, Richard Lovell Edgworth, even after his rejection of Rousseau’s “speculation” in Emile, remained a doctrinaire – over- reliant on the strength of human reason, under the influence of Locke’s ideas in Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693), and essentially convinced that education could

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overrule any inclinations a child might have towards certain areas of knowledge and certain avocations. With him, the primacy of experience became an axiom which superseded the dogmatism of Rousseau’s faith in the child as noble savage. It is to be noted, however, as has been shown apropos of the isolation of children, that his thinking never ossified, and that his ideas on education kept evolving, at least on certain points.

15 What is missing from both Practical Education and Professional Education is “a clear and precise statement of the aim of education, such as could have given coherence and unity to the whole mass of pedagogical doctrine therein contained29”. This is no doubt owing to the strong utilitarian bias of Richard Lovell and Maria Edgeworth, as well as a Lockeian epistemology which was not related to a well-defined conception of the gentleman such as undergirded Locke’s Thoughts Concerning Education. Related to this is the strongly individualistic bias of the Edgeworthian pedagogy, already mentioned, which did not leave much room for a consideration of the “social virtues30”. This individualism was also Richard Lovell Edgeworth’s: his large family may have been a testing ground for his educational ideas, but it was also a microcosm, a small world over which he ruled supreme, and which, together with his estate, provided him with a sufficient field of action.

The Irishman : between non-sectarianism and Ascendancy

16 Richard Lovell Edgeworth was not lastingly involved in Irish politics, or at least he was not for long a Member of Parliament, though for many years he sat as an expert on various parliamentary committees. He first took an active part in Irish politics in 1782 when he published “a radical address urging the County Longford volunteers to seize the moment to petition the Irish House of Commons for further reform, especially on Catholic emancipation31”. He also thought that the House should be more representative of the population, especially of freeholders32. He attended further meetings of the Volunteer movement, including the Congress in Dublin in 1784, but understood that the Congress should not challenge the authority of the House of Commons, as the radical Bishop of Derry wished, and he was instrumental in convincing the delegates to disband33.

17 He first stood for the Irish House of Commons in 1796, in a county election, but was not returned. This failure in a county election probably explains why he agreed to stand for the borough of St Johnstown, though he considered that too many boroughs were unrepresentative. He was elected and thus sat in the last Irish House of Commons before the Union of 1801. He made three speeches in the House in the protracted debate on the Union. No doubt in order that his paradoxical vote should be understood, he had those speeches published by his friend the London radical publisher Joseph Johnson under the title The Substance of Three Speeches, delivered in the House of Commons of Ireland, February 6, March 4, and March 21, 1800, upon the subject of an union with Great Britain (1800). About the second speech the historian W. E. H. Lecky said in his History of England in the Eighteenth Century that it was “another of those curious, balanced, hesitating speeches, which are so unlike the general character of Irish oratory 34”. The word “hesitating” seems ill suited to Edgeworth’s well-attested forceful and assertive tone in public; his descendants, who could speak more freely than Maria Edgeworth

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said that “when he was serious, he was portentously so; hence his ponderous rhetoric and his sonorous didacticism35”. As Lecky could not have heard Edgeworth in 1800 (he was not born until 1838), he must have been referring to the very careful dialectical nature of Edgeworth’s argument, which is particularly striking in the first and longest speech. At the beginning of this speech, he warns his listeners that he will address himself to their “sober reason36”. This is indeed what he does, going through the arguments against a union, and refuting them one by one. To him, what makes the union necessary are “religious dissentions”. He evokes “the horrors on either side”, though he speaks as a Protestant who looks forward to the end of Roman Catholicism. Indeed, he departs from his sober rationality in the following outburst against “popery”: The popery of the present day is a lion robbed of his teeth and claws – it will expire from necessary causes in a short time – and the less it is stimulated, the sooner it will fall into neglect – the sun of reason has ascended too high to be followed by the mists of ignorance; let it shine on Ireland, and popery is not more37.

18 In this speech and the following ones, Edgeworth stresses that the planned union must be “upon a perfect footing of equality”, and explains why he objects to the kind of representation of Irish MPs and peers which has been prepared. While Edgeworth’s arguments in favour of the union are political and economic, his arguments against it are political and moral. He thinks that Irish Members of Parliament should not vote against the wishes of the overwhelming majority of the Irish people – by which he means men of “property, ability, information and experience38”; he also objects, more and more strongly over his three speeches, to the overt corruption which has been used by the British authorities to ensure success.

19 As Maria Edgeworth puts it in her account of the debate on the union: He stated his doubts just as they had really occurred, balancing the arguments as he threw them by turns into each scale, as they had balanced one another in his judgement; so that the doubtful beam nodded from side to side, while all watched to see when its vibrations would settle. All the time he kept both parties in good humour, because each expected to have him their own at last39.

20 Ultimately, moral revulsion prevailed, and Richard Lovell Edgeworth voted, like his patron Lord Granard, against the union. Catholics in County Longford were astonished and enthusiastic.

21 The fact is that Richard Lovell Edgeworth’s views and choices, when it came to politics and religion, were complex, and sometimes contradictory. While his condemnation of “popery” was unambiguous, he was completely non-sectarian in his attitude to his dependents: he had Catholic and Protestant servants and tenants, and the corps of infantry he raised in 1798 was also non-sectarian. This is certainly what saved his deserted home from being ransacked by the rebels in 1798. In 1792, while in England, he wrote a letter to the Roman Catholics of County Longford, declaring himself “in favour of a full participation of rights amongst every denomination of men in Ireland40 ”. While he wanted to, and did, improve the miserable lot of his mostly Catholic tenants, he was not a democrat, as he made clear in his second speech on the union, his use of the phrase “the Irish people” in his first speech having obviously been misunderstood. He said on 4th March that, after the 1798 rebellion, “liberty now meant something more than a name, and every man knew that it did not mean democracy41”. About the same time, in the speech he made to the committee on the education of the poor, he stated that his view of the French Revolution was that of Burke, not that of

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Paine, for whom “the Rights of Man […] were prior and antecedent to all rule”, and therefore unconvincing to “any reasonable man42”. He was wary of broad abstract concepts, as he made clear in his first speech when he said: “French philanthropists follow the phantom of universal benevolence as their guide, and, becoming abstract citizens, are neither husbands, fathers, nor children43”. It will be clear from this analysis that Edgeworth was not afraid of standing all alone — not siding with his Ascendancy colleagues, nor with Catholics, nor with any of the sectarian groups. To convey how immoral a union enforced by the presence of British troops would be, he pointed out that this meant waiting for the sanction of time and acquiescence, rather as Bonaparte, Britain’s arch-enemy, had done when he seized power in 179844. He predicted, about such a union: the fire may be smothered in its ashes, but the same wind that bears away the English troops, or that wafts an invading army to these coasts, will blow up the embers of Discontent into a flame, which may, perhaps, destroy both countries before it can be quenched45.

22 Some clearsightedness cannot be denied him for adding: “I cannot help suspecting that this [the imposed union” is an experiment upon a limb of the British Empire, to try whether the whole body can bear the violence of such measures46”.

23 Edgeworth’s insistence on viewing the planned union from many different angles, on shifting his perspective to come to the best possible decision, did not include his challenging the rule of the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy, surely because he saw the bulk of the Catholic population as very poor and ignorant and as needing to be educated before they could be given any form of political agency. As he said in a letter to Erasmus Darwin, written in September 1794 : “the peasants, though cruel, are generally docile, and of the strongest powers, both of body and mind. A good government may make this a great country, because the raw material is good and simple47”.

24 Edgeworth was too scrupulous and too thoughtful to become a popular politician, and, here again, he behaved as a philosophe :

Le philosophe est jaloux de tout ce qui s’appelle honneur et probité. La société civile est, pour ainsi dire, une divinité pour lui sur la terre ; il l’encense, il l’honore par la probité, par une attention exacte à ses devoirs, & par un désir sincère de n’en être pas un membre inutile ou embarrassant. Les sentimens de probité entrent autant dans la constitution méchanique du philosophe, que les lumières de l’esprit48.

25 The best field of action for the implementation of his political ideas was his own estate of Edgeworthstown, where he did away with the patronage system, with very long leases which provided no incentive for exertion on the part of tenants, offering them in exchange moderate rents, and making no distinction between Catholics and Protestants49.

Conclusion

26 Richard Lovell Edgeworth was never an intellectual figurehead with the fame of a Jonathan Swift or a Voltaire, but like them he stood up for his ideas and, because of his multifarious interests and his personal circumstances, was able to implement them: he tested Rousseauian primitivism and then his own educational empiricism on his

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children, he ran his estate along non-sectarian and meritocratic lines, he built the mechanical devices which he had first designed. His political career in the strict sense of the term was very short, but much of his action was intrinsically political – his management of his estate was controversial, his joint writings on education showed “how the apparently private realm of child-rearing and early education might become a source of social transformation and of challenge to established authorities50”, his membership of the Lunar Society identified him with the rising scientific and industrial élite, and thus with the major changes taking place in British society in the second half of the eighteenth century. That he was perceived as a man of advanced views is confirmed by his friendly acquaintance with such progressive Whigs as Sir Samuel Romilly and Lord Landsdowne, and with Etienne Dumont, the translator of Bentham. His indifference to publicity and to fame no doubt explains that he should be mainly remembered nowadays, if he is remembered at all, as the father of the novelist Maria Edgeworth. However, he also deserves to be remembered as a philosophe, an “experimental philosopher” and as an enlightened Irish patriot; as a man who could embrace humanist culture as well as the most up-to-date science, support the power of the Ascendancy and promote Catholic emancipation. He was both a committed intellectual, and one of the last universal savants51.

NOTES

1. Francis Jeffrey, ‘Memoirs of Dr Joseph Priestley’, Edinburgh Review, n° 9, 1806, p. 147. Quoted in Robert E. Schofield, The Lunar Society of Birmingham, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1963. 2. According to the OED quoted by Stefan Collini, Absent Minds: Intellectuals in Britain, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006, p. 18. 3. Francis Jeffrey knew Richard Lovell Edgeworth through the latter’s collaborative work with his daughter Maria. He reviewed several novels and series of tales by Maria Edgeworth in the Edinburgh Review, and they started a correspondence. 4. Richard Lovell Edgeworth and Maria Edgeworth, Memoirs, London, Hunter, 1820, vol. 2, p. 188. 5. Ibid., p. 185. 6. Ibid., p. 188. 7. In the educational treatise Practical Education (1798), which Richard Lovell Edgeworth wrote with his daughter Maria Edgeworth, “science” usually means “experimental science”, but that is because of the nature of the work in question. 8. Richard Lovell Edgeworth and Maria Edgeworth, Memoirs, p. 188. 9. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 139. 10. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 329.

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11. Talcott Parsons, “The Intellectual: A Social Role Category”, in Philip Rieff (ed.), On Intellectuals: Theoretical Studies, Case Studies, New York, Doubleday, 1969, p. 15. 12. Thomas Day bought two successive estates, but that was mostly because he wanted to live away from the world; he did not come from a landed background. 13. Richard Lovell Edgeworth, The Substance of Three Speeches, delivered in the House of Commons of Ireland, February 6, March 4, and March 21, 1800, upon the subject of an union with Great Britain, London, Johnson, 1800, p. 10. [ECCO]. 14. Richard Lovell Edgeworth and Maria Edgeworth, Memoirs, vol. 1, p. 46. 15. Alice Paterson, The Edgeworths: A Study of Later Eighteenth-century Education, London, University Tutorial Press, 1914, p. 13. 16. Richard Lovell Edgeworth and Maria Edgeworth, Memoirs, vol. 2, p. 361. 17. Ibid., p. 329. 18. Diderot et d’Alembert, Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, Paris, Briasson, 1751-1772, p. 509. [ARTFL] 19. Richard Lovell Edgeworth and Maria Edgeworth, Memoirs, vol. 1, p. 177. 20. Ibid., p. 178. 21. Ibid., p. 179. 22. Richard Lovell Edgeworth and Maria Edgeworth, Practical Education, 1798, 2nd ed., London, Johnson, 1801, vol. 1, p. VI. 23. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 246. 24. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 185-86. 25. Marilyn Butler, Maria Edgeworth: A Literary Biography, Oxford, Clarendon, 1972, p. 172. 26. J. P. Nettl, “Ideas, Intellectuals, and Structures of Dissent”, in Philip Rieff, op. cit., p. 63. 27. Richard Lovell Edgeworth and Maria Edgeworth, Practical Education, 1798, 2nd ed., London, Johnson, 1801, vol. 1, p. 290. 28. Richard Lovell Edgeworth and Maria Edgeworth, Memoirs, vol. 2, p. 399. 29. Alice Paterson, The Edgeworths, p. 36. 30. Ibid., p. 70. 31. Christina Colvin, Article on Richard Lovell Edgeworth, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004. 32. See text of this speech in Richard Lovell and Maria Edgeworth, Memoirs, vol. 2, p. 49-51. 33. See Jenny Uglow, The Lunar Men: The Friends who made the Future 1730-1810, London, Faber, 2002, p. 341. 34. W. E. H. Lecky, History of England in the Eighteenth Century, vol. 8, p. 456. Quoted in Harriet Jessie Butler and Harold Edgeworth Butler, The Black Book of Edgeworthstown and Other Edgeworth Memories 1585-1817, London, Faber and Gwyer, 1927, p. 182. 35. Harriet Jessie Butler and Harold Edgeworth Butler, Black Book, p. 232. 36. Richard Lovell Edgeworth, Substance, p. 3. 37. Ibid., p. 14.

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38. Ibid., p. 28. 39. Richard Lovell Edgeworth and Maria Edgeworth, Memoirs, vol. 2, p. 243-244. 40. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 148. 41. Richard Lovell Edgeworth, Substance, p. 28. 42. Richard Lovell Edgeworth and Maria Edgeworth, Memoirs, vol. 2, p. 247. 43. Richard Lovell Edgeworth, Substance, p. 23. 44. Ibid., p. 46. 45. Ibid., p. 47. 46. Ibid., p. 48. 47. Quoted in Jenny Uglow, The Lunar Men, p. 342. 48. Diderot et d’Alembert, Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, Paris, Briasson, 1751-72, p. 510. [ARTFL]Ò 49. See Gary Kelly, “Class, Gender, Nation, and Empire: Money and Merit in the Writings of the Edgeworths”, The Wordsworth Circle, vol. 25 n° 2, Spring 1994, p. 88. 50. Susan Manly, “Maria Edgeworth and ‘the light of nature’: artifice, autonomy, and anti-sectarianism in Practical Education (1798)”, in Heather Glen and Paul Hamilton (eds)., Repossessing the Romantic Past, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006, p. 143. 51. One could perhaps apply to Richard Lovell Edgeworth what Edgar Morin says of the Marxist: “Le marxiste cesse d’être un intellectuel tout en élargissant le champ de l’intellectualité, parce qu’il devient à la fois praticien et penseur, militant et savant.” Edgar Morin, “Intellectuels : Critique du mythe et mythe de la critique”, Arguments, special issue on Intellectuals, n° 20, 1960, p. 37.

ABSTRACTS

Although Richard Lovell Edgeworth is more often remembered for being the father of Maria, the novelist, than for his ideas on politics and education, he was conversant with Rousseau’s theories as well as a champion of experimental philosophy. He set great store by the kind of atmosphere prevalent in the Lunar Society, where “the mutual collision of ideas” was favoured as a method of reaching truth, and when it came to religion, his views and choices smacked of anything but dogmatism. In short, as this article tries to demonstrate, Edgeworth, living as he did at a time when the concept of the intellectual had not yet been devised, was a philosophe in the eighteenth- century sense of the word.

Richard Lovell Edgeworth est plus connu comme le père de Maria, la romancière, que pour ses idées sur la politique et l’éducation, et pourtant il était familier des théories de Rousseau ainsi qu’un ardent défenseur de la philosophie expérimentale. Il attachait beaucoup de prix à l’atmosphère de « la Lunar Society », où la confrontation réciproque des idées était perçue comme un moyen d’atteindre la vérité, et ses idées ou ses préférences en matière de religion

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n’avaient rien de dogmatique. En un mot, ainsi que cet article entend le démontrer, Edgeworth, qui vivait à une époque où le concept d’intellectuel n’avait pas encore été forgé, était un philosophe au sens où l’entendait le XVIIIe siècle.

INDEX

Keywords: philosophy, Edgeworth Richard Lovell, intellectuals Mots-clés: Edgeworth Richard Lovell , philosophie, intellectuels

AUTHOR

ISABELLE BOUR Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3

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A Panacea for the Nation : Berkeley’s Tar-water and Irish Domestic Development

Scott Breuninger

1 Following his return to Ireland after his aborted plan to settle a missionary college in Bermuda, George Berkeley was appointed Bishop of Cloyne (1734) and soon confronted the harsh conditions facing his charges. His first response to these problems was a series of economic tracts, The Querist (1735-1737), that provided patriotic guidance for improving the health of the Irish economy vis-à-vis England. While these texts were read widely, their influence upon the general well-being of his flock was negligible. This was especially true after poor harvests and endemic poverty conspired to lower the standard of living throughout the island, a situation acerbated by the spread of epidemics during the early 1740s. Faced with these challenges, Berkeley published his controversial, and oft-overlooked, Siris (1744).

2 For philosophers concerned with Berkeley’s legacy Siris is rarely mentioned as anything other than a curiosity; yet during his own life, his call for the use of tar-water was extraordinarily popular and helped cement his reputation as “the good bishop1”. By promoting an affordable solution to pressing national problems, Berkeley provided a practical avenue for Irish patriots to improve the welfare of their countrymen. This paper will first locate Berkeley’s Siris within its Irish context, noting how the nation was suffering through a period of great socio-economic stress. After outlining the impetus for this work and sketching its practical dimension, I will then survey the popular responses to it from contemporary defenders of medical orthodoxy. Finally, I will end with some thoughts concerning the place of Siris in Berkeley’s larger project, contending that rather than being seen as a point of departure, or “a new enthusiasm”, the metaphysical underpinnings contained therein harkened back to his earliest popular writings in The Guardian2. In particular, Berkeley’s evocation of the ‘great chain of being’ in Siris and the very structure of this text, drew upon notions of human sociability that suggest Berkeley held an inclusive view of humanity that crossed sectarian lines, holding out hope for the improvement of all inhabitants of Ireland.

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Historical Context(s) : Berkeley’s Career and Cloyne

3 Despite Berkeley’s reputation today as a key philosopher of idealism, the texts that formed the basis for this legacy were written while he was still a struggling research fellow at Trinity College3. These works were certainly influential, but his reputation as “the good bishop” and Pope’s attribution to him of “ev’ry virtue under heav’n” stemmed from a lifetime of practical plans aimed at improving the lives of others4. After being appointed Bishop of Cloyne, Berkeley was acutely engaged with Irish economic issues. Supported by Thomas Prior and Samuel Madden, Berkeley’s analyses were published as The Querist and illustrate his attitudes towards the sectarian and class differences that plagued Irish society. These proscriptions for the economic well being of his native land were closely linked to Berkeley’s espousal of an Irish patriotism grounded in a practical recognition of the challenges facing Ireland as a whole. While this mature position contained elements of religious prejudice, these were tempered by a greater concern for creating a self-sufficient state able to weather the storms of social upheaval.

4 By the late 1730s, Berkeley had established himself in Cloyne and by all accounts was devoted to the well being of his flock. Cloyne was an isolated and impoverished area, but Berkeley implemented a number of plans aimed at improving local conditions. Drawing upon the ideas of fellow members of the Dublin Society, Berkeley organized a spinning school, built a workhouse for vagrants, and experimented with the cultivation of hemp and flax5. In addition to encouraging economic development, Berkeley created a center of learning and culture, eventually retaining an “eminent Italian Master of Musick in his house6”. While these innovations pointed toward growing prosperity, nature soon intervened and wrought havoc in Berkeley’s plans.

5 The winter of 1739-1740 was exceptionally harsh and caused great devastation throughout Ireland. The author of The Distressed State of Ireland Considered (1740) observed that that “uncommon Height of Markets through the Summer, the Scarcity of Bread (that in some Places come near to a Famine) and the Poverty of the greater part of Buyers, are Hardships that have been very general though the Kingdom this Year7”. Seeking to help relieve the plight of the poor, during the spring frost Berkeley donated £20 every Monday to the underprivileged of Cloyne and in a show of solidarity with his neighbors abstained from using precious flour to powder his wig until after the fall harvest8. Nonetheless, these moderate efforts were for naught and by the end of the summer Ireland faced near famine conditions that recalled those of the late 1720s. Contemporary reports described the “dearth of all sorts of Provision, attended by a severe and almost general Sickness, that by all accounts [has] nearly depopulated some parts of the Country9”. During the summer of 1740 an outbreak of smallpox hit Cloyne and by winter an epidemic of dysentery, in Berkeley’s words the “bloody flux”, had added further misery to the countryside10. By the following spring, Berkeley wrote that “the distresses of the sick and poor are endless”, leading him to lament that the “nation probably will not recover this loss in a century11”. Surveying this wreckage, the author of The Groans of Ireland (1741) described the nation as “the most miserable Scene of universal distress, that I have ever read of in History12”. Faced with these awful conditions, Berkeley felt as though he had no option but to aid in whatever manner he could, an urge acerbated by the paucity of medical care available in the region.

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6 During the early 1740s, Ireland suffered from a dearth of doctors, especially outside of Dublin. Medical care was primarily a matter of private enterprise and public benevolence, which in rural areas such as Cloyne meant that the poor were reliant upon the generosity of the local gentry and religious establishment 13. Although there were some popular ‘cures’ for ailments – such as Ward’s “Pill and Drop”, Dr. John Arbuthnot’s diet of “asses milk”, Dr. Thomas Dover’s “Mercury Powders”, and Dr. Robert James’s “Fever Powders” – effective treatment for the problems facing the country in 1741 was effectively non-existent14. Since the medical establishment was far from institutionalized at this point, Berkeley justified his actions by claiming, “if physicians think they have a right to treat of religious matters, I think I have an equal right to treat of medicine 15”. This was the immediate context in which Berkeley began his experiments with tar-water, seeking to alleviate the distress of his neighbors.

Tar-Water : The Panacea and its Critics

7 Berkeley’s letters to his friend Thomas Prior indicate that he first began experimenting with tar-water as a cure for the epidemics afflicting his neighbors in the fall of 1741, but it was only after the danger had passed that he translated his experiences to writing16. First published in Dublin, Siris : A Chain of Philosophical Reflexions and Inquiries concerning the Virtues of Tar Water (1744), quickly became a best-seller and passed through six editions before the end of the year17. Berkeley’s rambling text began with concrete instructions for the preparation of tar-water and a series of case studies of its success in treating a wide array of ailments. Following this initial foray into medicine, Siris meanders from botany to chemistry to metaphysics, before ending with a discussion concerning the nature of God. This structure is in part alluded to by the title itself, since “siris” is a variation of the Greek word for chain, but as Berkeley later noted, this word was also used by the ancient Egyptians to refer to the Nile. In this sense, he suggested “the virtue of tar-water, flowing like the Nile from a secret and occult source, brancheth into innumerable channels, conveying health and relief wherever it is applied18”. Here Berkeley pointed out two issues of importance for understanding his goals. First, he suggested that tar-water, like the Nile, could provide a healing function for those who imbibed it. Secondly, his claim that it originated in a “secret and occult source” pointed toward his view of divinity and the notion of sociability that he believed connected all of humanity.

8 Turning to the first of these issues, the practical side of Siris, Berkeley harbored great hopes for its ability to improve the daily lives of those who drank it. Berkeley began Siris with his own recipe for tar-water and then discussed the types of conditions that he treated with success. In doing so, Berkeley suggested that tar-water could ease nearly every physical problem imaginable, although initially he eschewed using the word “panacea” and tempered his conclusions by repeatedly reminding his readers that his observations were based upon his own personal experiences19. For instance, he noted that in 1741, “twenty-five fevers in my own family [were] cured by this medicinal water, drunk copiously20”. His enthusiasm for the potential of tar-water was also evident in his First Letter to Thomas Prior (1744), where he declared “I freely own that I suspect Tar-water is a Panacea […] [but] that by a Panacea is not meant a Medicine which cures all Individuals, (this consists not with Mortality) but a Medicine that cures or relieves all the different Species of Distempers21”. Not only could tar-water cure and

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prevent natural illnesses, but it could “withstand that execrable Plague of distilled Spirits […] which Pest of human Kind is, I am told, gaining ground in this Country, already too thin of Inhabitants 22”. As described by Berkeley, cheap and plentiful tar- water could safeguard the Irish population and effectively usher in a medical utopia, populated with healthy and productive citizens23.

9 Just as his Bermuda plan had captured the public’s imagination, so too did the potential of tar-water. In June 1744 William Duncombe wrote to Archbishop Herring that “It is impossible to write a letter now without tincturing the ink with tar-water24”. In a similar manner, Horace Walpole observed in May 1744 that “we are now mad about tar- water25”. By the end of the year, the Tar-Water Warehouse opened in St. James’s Street and published excerpts from Siris, along with testimonials as to its usefulness26. The virtues of tar-water even inspired poets, such as the author of Tar Water, A Ballad, who implored his audience to laud Berkeley’s praises, since he had taken the “sting” from death27. Its influence even extended into the netherworld, as a popular tract, Siris in the Shades, purported to relay a conversation over the merits of tar-water in the afterlife28.

10 While the general public rallied behind Berkeley’s cure, the medical establishment remained skeptical. Some of these critiqued Berkeley’s command of chemistry and modern medical practices, claiming that his efforts were misguided at best and potentially harmful at worst. Leading the attack from the medical establishment was Dr. Thomas Reeve, later President of the Royal College of Physicians, who argued that Siris was riddled with scientific errors. Alluding to Berkeley’s earlier philosophic work, Reeve pointed out the irony of “an attempt to talk Men out of their Reason” being lodged by “that Author who had first tried to persuade them out of their Senses29”. Reeve not only charged that Berkeley’s “infidelity in our Art is too apparent”, but claimed that he knew “very little of the Art [he had] undertaken to disprove30”. Reeve then outlined a series of errors in Siris concerning chemical analyses, concluding that Berkeley had only settled on tar-water due to the fact that it was cheap and easily obtained. Following this logic, Reeve chided Berkeley from failing to acknowledge “mere Water to be more medicinal than Tar-Water”, since it was even more readily available31. Still, while Reeve’s attack on Berkeley’s medical credentials was powerful, for the most part it refrained from ad hominem attacks and relied upon scientific grounds; other critics of Siris were not quite as civil.

11 James Jurin, Secretary of the Royal Society and later President of the Royal College of Physicians, was a prominent advocate of inoculation techniques and launched one of the more telling assaults on Siris32. Questioning Berkeley’s allegiance to modern medicine, Jurin feared that Berkeley’s plan would “bring again the whole Knowledge of Medicine to its Primitive Darkness to specific Remedies, and occult Qualities33”. In his Letter, Jurin argued that Berkeley misunderstood contemporary medicine, resulting in a farrago of theories without scientific basis. This relatively sober analysis was accompanied by a snide allusion to Pope’s famous verse, claiming “the Author has serv’d his Medicine just as Pope serv’d him, by giving it every Virtue under Heaven, he has made all the World conclude it never had any34”. In the end, he announced that “as Bishop of Cloyne, I honour and respect [you], but as a Physician, I despise and pity You35 ”.

12 While Jurin’s judgment was harsh, at least it was premised upon the scientific merits of Siris, unlike the tactics used by the author of Anti-Siris. This pamphlet openly ridiculed tar-water by comparing it to an earlier panacea : red cow urine36. Channeling the spirit

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of Swift, this tract outlined how potent red cow urine could only be collected “one or two Months in the Year, and but to a very early Hour in the Morning”. Despite its origins, red cow urine commonly led to the “Breach of the public Peace […] which happen’d every Morning in the Cow Houses about this great Metropolis, when Footmen, Chairmen, and other trusty Messengers from the Ladies broke on another’s Heads to be first serv’d with the first plenteous Bounty of the Animal37”. While Anti-Siris questioned the medical qualities of Berkeley’s panacea, it also incorporated a political attack. According to Anti-Siris, Berkeley’s Siris was not meant to be a scientific tract at all, but rather served as a stalking horse for religious reformation. This pamphlet described Siris as a “Medley of Politics and Metaphysics” designed to further Berkeley’s “religious and political scheme”. It suggested that if tar-water were to prove successful, “the Call for his Commodity here must raise the Price in Norway, which would not only endear our Prince and nation to the Danes, but will enable their King to help us against France without a Subsidy38”. Religiously, Anti-Siris claimed that Berkeley’s true aim in publishing this text was to “attack Deism”, with the ultimate goal of reforming “church and state39”. According to this reading, Berkeley’s concerns for universal health were a mask for his goal of strengthening religious orthodoxy and state power.

13 In part, these accusations concerning Berkeley’s true motives may have been due to his Irish background, a fact that filtered into other responses to Siris with less vitriol. In these cases, Berkeley’s Irish heritage and post were not necessarily a cause for alarm, but did raise questions concerning the viability of this cure across the Irish Sea. In his defense of Siris, Philanthropos admitted that Berkeley may have overstated his case, but found some value in tar-water. In part, this stemmed from the nature of Berkeley’s flock, on the grounds that “we must make great Allowances for the Patients my Lord prescribe to, viz. upon poor People in Ireland […] whose Constitutions are in some measure emaciated by a perpetual Revolution of vernal and autumnal Agues, intermitting and other cronic Disorders40”. Risorius questioned the effectiveness of tar- water as a universal panacea and mounted a similarly lukewarm defense. After noting some general problems with Berkeley’s analysis, Risorius suggested that tar-water “may be better adapted to the Climate of Ireland, than to English Constitutions; in which Case, the prudent Part would be, to leave it entirely to the Irish41”. In each of these cases, tar-water was dismissed as a panacea, but was seen to have some (limited) use in Ireland where medical care was scarce, thus echoing the argument that Berkeley himself made concerning the paucity of doctors in Cloyne.

14 In the first section of Siris, Berkeley proposed a solution to one of the foremost problems facing Ireland : the lack of adequate medical care beyond the areas serviced by Dublin. While this effort elicited a number of critiques, the crisis to which he was responding was legitimate and reaching a critical point. In terms of Berkeley’s goal of improving Ireland, the notion of a panacea played a crucial role. Not only could tar- water improve the well-being of the Irish population, but by providing a healthy workforce the nation as a whole could move forward economically as well. In the second part of Siris Berkeley outlined the metaphysical basis for tar-water’s effectiveness, drawing upon Stoic notions of cosmology to support his earlier contention that there was a fundamental sense of sociability among all humans. This universal bond could unite and elevate the nation across sectarian bounds just as the power of tar-water could improve the physical bodies of its population.

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The Stoic Tradition and Berkeley’s Siris

15 Although the first half of Siris was devoted to explicating the benefits of tar-water, Berkeley also provided a series of digressions, or “chain of reflexions”, addressing why this liquid was so powerful. In the course of doing so, Berkeley raised a number of philosophical issues that have made this text particularly hard to categorize. As a result, commentators on this text have often tried to locate Siris within the context of Berkeley’s career, in order to determine whether it was a new departure for him or a continuation of an earlier project. Berkeley’s first biographer, A. A. Luce, suggests that while Siris built upon Berkeley’s earlier philosophic system, it was a weak effort that “never should have seen the light of day as such42”. Focusing on notions of particles within Siris, Gabriel Moked claims that this text marked a “radical change of mind” regarding the idea of “corpuscularian philosophy43”. Marina Benjamin argues that Siris was the final salvo in Berkeley’s long-running attack on deists and freethinkers that sought to “bring wandering souls back to true religion44”. David Berman also emphasizes the religious nature of Siris and explains the text as an example of Berkeley’s “medical idealism”, since “tar-water is the closest natural thing to drinkable God45”. A few scholars have taken a different route, choosing to place Siris within “archaic” traditions of the “Great Chain of Being” with roots in Platonism and alchemy46. According to this reading, the theory of the Great Chain of Being made it “ontologically possible” for tar-water to be effective47.

16 While these explanations provide important insights into how Berkeley understood tar- water to function, in terms of the larger Irish context a more useful suggestion comes from Timo Airaksinen, who argues that Siris should be seen as imbibing heavily from the Stoic tradition of social thought. According to Airaksinen, Berkeley accepted the Stoic notion that the world “is an organic unity”, modeled on the Great Chain of Being and possessing a fundamental sense of harmony48. In this case, the chain is constructed in the physical world along a continuum, running from tar to God, with tar itself acting as the “condensation of light” or “an embodiment of the divine life49”. Since tar-water was the distillation of the “divine fire”, it could bring beneficial effects to all physical bodies with which it came into contact.

17 In terms of living beings and consciousness, Berkeley also used this notion of a chain to claim that all the parts of the world, “however distant each from other, are nevertheless related and connected by one common nature […] a chain or scale of beings rising by gentle uninterrupted gradations from the lowest to the highest, each nature being informed and perfected by the participation of the higher50”. While Airaksinen is right to point out that this ancient tradition indicated the potential for perfectibility among all beings, in terms of Berkeley’s understanding of Irish society a more fruitful avenue of approach is to see Siris as part of an important strand of Stoic thought circumscribed by the notion of oikeiosis51.

18 The Greek word oikeiosis may be translated in a variety of ways, but generally denotes an important relationship on par with “endearment” and associated with the development of ever-widening social networks52. According to Cicero, “nature, by the power of reason, unites one man to another for the fellowship both of common speech and of life53”. Typically this bond passed outward through a series of concentric circles to include family, friends, states, and eventually (in its full cosmopolitan form) humanity itself54. The ultimate source of this movement was self-preservation, but

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reason allowed humans to recognize the value of associating with others55. Additionally, a key part of this outward movement stressed the moral injunction for humans to improve themselves and display benevolence towards others. According to the Stoics, this connection between humans was governed and inspired by a divine will that provided harmony within the universe56. Cicero stressed that this sense of fellowship needed to be accompanied by the virtue of learning, yoking the elevation of the individual mind upward with a sense of sociability57. Thus, as humans developed, they were expected to evolve from purely physical concerns “into thinking animals, who prefer mental to bodily well-being58”. In the end, he concluded there were “degrees of duties within social life itself”, culminating in “that vast fellowship of the human race” on par with an early form of cosmopolitanism59. In this manner, Stoics linked sociability with divine oversight and the need to elevate humanity. By the eighteenth century, this “out-and-up” movement was associated with a Christianized form of Stoicism and provides a useful conceptual tool for describing the mechanism supporting Berkeley’s system in Siris and harkens back to his earlier works60.

19 In Siris, Berkeley explores this notion of oikeiosis in two important ways. The first of these is alluded to by the title and structure of the work, since the flowing nature of the former is reflected by the organization of the latter. According to the Stoics, humans are first drawn to their immediate surroundings in the material world and it requires the exercise of reason to elevate the soul and allow for an appreciation of higher, more abstract, forms of the good. Berkeley embedded a sense of this process of gradual enlightenment within the structure of Siris. Berkeley’s text begins with a close examination of the physical benefits of tar-water, grounding his analysis in the material sciences of botany and chemistry. This focus gradually shifts towards a metaphysical exploration of the nature of reality and the divine, just as the Stoics suggested that the process of oikeiosis led humans to enlightenment. As a result, the “reader only interested in the latest cure” is guided along a path of “speculative ascent” to “consider divine subjects without his being aware of the transition61”.

20 In addition to this structural evocation of oikeiosis, Berkeley also addresses this issue more formally in his explanation of the ties uniting disparate individuals, suggesting that tar-water was not only a panacea for the body, but a potent symbol of human improvement. At the core of Berkeley’s analysis was an appreciation for Stoic cosmology. In Siris, Berkeley contended that there is a “hidden force that unites, adjusts, and causeth all things to hang together, and move in harmony […] this principle of union is no blind principle, but acts with intellect […] Intellect enlightens, Love connects, and the sovereign good attracts all things62”. This appeal to a divine source of harmony, echoing the Stoic notion of a pneuma shaping the universe, provided the basis for Berkeley’s explanation of social interaction63. After outlining classical notions of fate, Berkeley appealed to the Stoic idea of the “world as an animal” when he suggested that “the mutual relation, connection, motion, and sympathy of the parts of this world, that they seem as it were animated and held together by one soul : and such is their harmony, order, and regular course, as shweweth the soul to be governed and directed by a mind64”. In this sense, Berkeley’s adoption of the Stoic notion of universal harmony and the attraction between individuals provided the first step in the process of oikeiosis – the outward bond of sociability between humans – which was coupled with the upward movement toward intellectual improvement.

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21 After tracing the origins and nature of harmony within the natural world, Berkeley turned his analysis to the mental world. He contended that : from the outward form of gross masses which occupy the vulgar, a curious inquirer proceeds to examine the inward structure and minute parts, and from observing the motions in nature, to discover the laws of those motions […] But, if proceeding still in his analysis and inquiry, he ascends from the sensible into the intellectual world, and beholds things in a new light and a new order65.

22 For Berkeley, human nature and the harmony of the universe engendered an obligation for individuals to expand their knowledge and to elevate their minds upward toward a more refined understanding of their telos. Berkeley carefully explained the various types of knowledge, noting how each step in the process leads to a finer appreciation of the divine. He argued that “by experiments of sense we become acquainted with the lower faculties of the soul; and from them, whether by a gradual evolution or ascent, we arrive at the highest […] in this scale, each lower faculty is a step that leads to one above it. And the uppermost naturally leads to the Deity66”. In making this link between the lower and higher faculties, Berkeley echoed the widespread notion of a “great chain of being”. At the core of this idea was a belief that the universe was constructed along the principles of plentitude, continuity, and gradation, which resulted in a smooth vertical spectrum of various “intelligences” (or “species”) ranging from the lowest worm to God. Applied to human social systems, this metaphor was typically used to support an “ethics of prudent mediocrity […] man’s duty was to keep his [social] place, and not to seek to transcend it67”. Typically, political appeals to the idea of the “great chain of being” were grounded in an attempt to justify the political status quo. One was born into a position on the social ladder through the will of God and should therefore remain on the same rung for life. By using the metaphor of a chain to highlight the horizontal connections between individuals and to stress the principle of attraction (rather than hierarchy), Berkeley effectively tilted the great chain of being on its side. For him, as for the Stoic advocates of oikeiosis, the primary value of this image was to show the relationship between humans, rather than between species or orders. In this case, Berkeley contended that an appreciation for the ties between individuals (the outward movement) and toward the divine (the upward movement) were essential for political leaders. He claimed, “he who hath not much meditated upon God, the Humane mind, and the Summum bonum, may possibly make an able earthworm, but will most indubitably make a sorry patriot and a sorry statesman68”. In the Irish case, this cosmopolitan vision of human sociability suggested that sectarian lines were human constructs that could be cast aside as the overall level of consciousness within society was raised. Thus, tar-water was the physical manifestation of Berkeley’s larger metaphysical belief in the need to improve the physical and spiritual conditions of the nation.

Conclusion

23 Taken as a whole, Berkeley’s Siris presented two related ideas for the improvement of Irish society during the 1740s. The first of these addressed the physical world through the medicinal effects of tar-water and aimed to ensure the health and well-being of a people sorely lacking proper care. By providing a cheap and easy manner to prevent illness in a society that faced frequent epidemics, Berkeley’s Siris may be seen as an effort to alleviate wide-spread suffering across sectarian lines. At the same time, the

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metaphysical notion of sociability embodied in the Stoic idea of oikeiosis provided a cosmopolitan justification for casting aside religious differences and recognizing the innate humanity of all inhabitants of Ireland. By calling upon political leaders to jettison sectarian divisions in favor of a universal definition of humanity and yoking this with the need to elevate their consciousness, Berkeley provided a model for the amelioration of the problems facing Ireland. Thus, in the end, Berkeley sought to care for both the physical and spiritual sides of the Irish body politic, with the hope of laying a foundation for social improvement and uplift.

NOTES

1. Emmanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 1787, Norman Kemp Smith (trans.), New York, St. Martin’s Press, 1929, p. 89. 2. Ian Tipton, Berkeley: The Philosophy of Immaterialism, 1974, Bristol, Thoemmes Press, 1994, p. 4. 3. Stephen Clark, “Introduction”, Money, Obedience, and Affection: Essays on Berkeley’s Moral and Political Thought, Stephen Clark (ed.), New York, Garland Publishing, 1989, p. VII. 4. Alexander Pope, “Epilogue to the Satires. Dialogue II”, Imitations of Horace with An Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot and The Epilogue to the Satires, John Butt (ed.), London, Methuen, 1939, p. 317. 5. A. A. Luce, The Life of George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, London, Thomas Nelson, 1949, p. 192. 6. W. R. C., Tour through Ireland in Several Entertaining Letters, Dublin, 1746, v. 1, p. 63 and Carole Fabricant, “George Berkeley the Islander”, The Global Eighteenth Century, Felicity Nussbaum (ed.), Baltimore, Johns Hopkins, 2003, p. 275. 7. Anonymous, The Distress’d State of Ireland Considered; More Particularly with Respect to the North, in a Letter to a Friend, Dublin, 1741, p. 4. 8. Luce, Life of Berkeley, p. 199. 9. Anonymous, A Proposal for Lessening the Excessive Price of Bread Corn in Ireland, Dublin, R. Reilly, 1741, p. 4. 10. Fabricant, “Berkeley the Islander”, p. 275 and George Berkeley to Thomas Prior [8 February 1740/41], The Works of George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessop (eds.), Edinburgh, Thomas Nelson, 1948-57, v. 8, p. 248. 11. Berkeley to Prior [19 May 1741], in Works, v. 8, p. 251-252. 12. Anonymous, The Groans of Ireland in a Letter to a Member of Parliament, Dublin, George Faulkner, 1741, p. 3. 13. Luce, Life of Berkeley, p. 198. 14. Marina Benjamin, “Medicine, Morality and the Politics of Berkeley’s Tar-Water”, The Medical Enlightenment of the Eighteenth Century, Andrew Cunningham and Roger

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French (eds.), Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1990, pp. 165-93; Marjorie Nicolson, “Joshua War’s ‘Pill and Drop’, and Men of Letters”, Journal of the History of Ideas, 29, 1968, pp. 177-96 and Roy Porter, “Lay Medical Knowledge in the Eighteenth Century: The Evidence of the Gentleman’s Magazine”, Medical History, 29, 1985, pp. 138-68. 15. Berkeley, First Letter to Thomas Prior, in Works v. 5, p. 173. 16. Ian Tipton, “Two Questions on Bishop Berkeley’s Panacea”, Journal of the History of Ideas, 30, 1969, p. 217. 17. E. J. Furlong and W. V. Denard, “The Dating of the Editions of Berkeley’s Siris and of his first Letter to Thomas Prior”, Hermathena, 86, 1955, p. 66-76. 18. Berkeley, Second Letter to Thomas Prior, in Works, v. 5, p. 185. 19. Peter Walmsley, T he Rhetoric of Berkeley’s Philosophy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1990, p. 150. 20. George Berkeley, Siris: A Chain of Philosophical Reflexions and Inquiries concerning the Virtues of Tar-Water and divers other Subjects connected together and arising one from another, in Works, v. 5, p. 56. 21. Berkeley, First Letter, in Works, v. 5, p. 175. 22. Ibid., p. 180. For information on Siris and alcohol, see David Berman, “Berkeley’s Siris and the ‘Whisky Patriots’”, Eighteenth Century Ireland, 1, 1986, p. 200-203. 23. Both Fabricant and Bradatan note the utopian element of Siris. Fabricant, “Berkeley the Islander”, p. 277-278 and Costica Bradatan, “One is All, and All is One: The Great Chain of Being in Berkeley’s Siris”, Ordering the World in the Eighteenth Century, Frank O’Gorman and Diana Donald (eds.), New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, p. 63-82. 24. Luce, Life of Berkeley, p. 201. 25. Horace Walpole’s Correspondence with Sir Horace Mann, W. S. Lewis (ed.), New Haven, 1955, v. 2, p. 451. 26. Anonymous, The Medicinal Virtues of Tar Water Fully Explained, Dublin, 1744. 27. Anonymous, Tar Water, A Ballad, Inscribed to the Right Honourable Philip Earl of Chesterfield, London, W. Webb, 1747, p. 4. 28. Anonymous, Siris in the Shades: A Dialogue concerning Tar Water; Between Mr. Benjamin Smith, lately deceased, Dr. Hancock, and Dr. Garth, at their meeting upon the banks of the River Styx, London, C. B., 1744. 29. Thomas Reeve, A Cure for the Epidemical Madness of Drinking Tar Water, Lately imported from IRELAND, London, John and Paul Knapton, 1744, p. 2. 30. Ibid., p. 3-4. 31. Ibid., p. 59. 32. Marjorie Nicolson and G. S. Rousseau, “Bishop Berkeley and Tar-Water”, The Augustan Milieu, Henry Miller (ed.), Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1970, p. 118. 33. James Jurin, A Letter to the Right Reverend the Bishop of Cloyne, Occasion’d by His Lordship’s Treatise on the Virtues of Tar-Water, London, Jacob Robinson, 1744, p. 8. 34. Ibid., p. 11. 35. Ibid., p. 39.

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36. Anonymous, Anti-Siris: Or, English Wisdom Exemplify’d by various Examples, but Particularly the present general Demand for Tar Water, London, M. Cooper, 1744, p. 34. 37. Ibid., p. 35-36. 38. Ibid., p. 50. 39. Ibid., p. 56 and p. 57. 40. Philanthropos, The Bishop of Cloyne Defended; or Tar-Water Proved Useful, London, J. Rivington, 1744, p. 18. 41. Risorius, Remarks on the Bishop of Cloyne’s Book, Entitled Siris, London, J. Roberts, 1744, p. 7. 42. A. A. Luce, “Berkeley’s Search for Truth”, Hermathena, 81, 1951, p. 22. 43. Gabriel Moked, Particles and Ideas: Bishop Berkeley’s Corpuscularian Philosophy, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1988, p. 1. 44. Benjamin, “Politics of Berkeley’s Tar-Water”, p. 169. 45. David Berman, George Berkeley: Idealism and the Man, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1994, p. 173. 46. A. D. Richie, “George Berkeley’s Siris: The Philosophy of the Great Chain of Being and the Alchemical Theory”, Proceedings of the British Academy, 40, 1954, p. 41-55. 47. Bradatan, “Berkeley’s Siris”, p. 72. 48. Timo Airakinen, “The Chain and the Animal: Idealism in Berkeley’s Siris”, Eriugena, Berkeley, and the Idealist Tradition, Stephen Gersh and Dermot Moran (eds.), Notre Dame, University Press of Notre Dame, 2006, p. 226-227. 49. Ibid., p. 236. 50. Berkeley, Siris, in Works, v. 5, p. 129. 51. For an analysis of the influence of Stoicism on Berkelely’s philosophical thought, see Stephen Daniel, “Berkeley’s Stoic Notion of Spiritual Substance”, New Interpretations of Berkeley’s Thought, Stephen Daniel (ed.), Amherst, Humanity Books, 2008. 52. S. G. Pembroke, “Oikeiosis”, Problems in Stoicism, A. A. Long (ed.), London, Athlone Press, 1971, pp. 114-16; Gretchen Reydams-Schils, The Roman Stoics: Self, Responsibility, and Affection, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2005, pp. 55-59; Nicholas White, “The Basis of Stoic Ethics”, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, 83, 1979, p. 145; and Troels Engberg-Pedersen, The Stoic Theory of Oikeiosis, Aarhus University Press, 1990. 53. Cicero, On Duties, M. T. Griffin (ed.), Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991, p. 6. 54. Pembroke, “Oikeiosis”, p. 125-26 and Cicero, Duties, p. 22-23. 55. Ibid., p. 6. 56. See Reydams-Schils, Roman Stoics, p. 57. 57. Cicero, Duties, p. 61. Also see Pembroke, “Oikeiosis”, p. 129. 58. A. A. Long, Stoic Studies, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1996, p. 262. 59. Cicero, Duties, p. 22-23. Also, see Martha Nussbaum, “Kant and Stoic Cosmopolitanism”, Journal of Political Philosophy, 5, 1997, pp. 5-7. 60. Laurence Dickey, “Doux-commerce and humanitarian values: free trade, sociability, and universal benevolence in eighteenth-century thinking”, Grotiana, 22, 2004, pp. 284-85.

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61. Walmsley, Berkeley’s Philosophy, p. 144-145. 62. Berkeley, Siris, in Works, v. 5, p. 122. 63. B. J. T. Dobbs, “Stoic and Epicurean doctrines in Newton”, Atoms, pneuma, and Tranquility: Epicurean and Stoic Themes in European Thought, Margaret Osler (ed.), Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991, p. 224. 64. Berkeley, Siris, in Works, v. 5, p. 128-29. 65. Ibid., p. 137. 66. Ibid., p. 140. 67. Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea, New York, Harper, 1936, p. 200. 68. Berkeley, Siris, in Works, v. 5, p. 157-158.

ABSTRACTS

After being appointed Bishop of Cloyne, the Irish philosopher George Berkeley confronted the harsh conditions facing his charges. In response, Berkeley published his controversial, and oft- overlooked, Siris (1744). This paper examines Berkeley’s call for the use of “tar water” as both a preventative medicine and panacea, surveying popular responses to it and showing how it was built upon a Stoic vision of sociability (oikeiosis) aimed at improving the welfare of the nation.

Après avoir été nommé évêque de Cloyne, le philosophe irlandais George Berkeley a dû affronter les difficiles conditions sociales auxquelles sa charge le confrontait. C’est en réponse à celles-ci qu’il a publié son œuvre controversée et souvent sous-estimée, Siris (1744). Cet article examine l’appel de Berkeley à utiliser “l’eau de goudron” comme médicament préventif et universel, étudie la réaction du public de l’époque, et cherche à montrer comment l’approche de Berkeley se fonde une vision stoïcienne de la sociabilité (oikeiosis) ayant pour but d’améliorer le bien-être de la nation.

INDEX

Mots-clés: Berkeley George, philosophie - stoïciens, intellectuels, science Keywords: philosophy - stoics, Berkeley George, science, intellectuals

AUTHOR

SCOTT BREUNINGER University of South Dakota, USA

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“Is that the word ?” Samuel Beckett and the Port-Royal Philosophy of Language

Mélanie Foehn

1 For even should I hit upon the right pensum, somewhere in this churn of words at last, I would still have to reconstitute the right lesson, unless of course the two are one and the same, which obviously is not impossible either1.

Introduction: Traces of Jansenism in Ireland and Beckett

2 Jansenism has long remained a disruptive theme in Ireland. Recently arguing against the widespread notion that Jansenism had been imported to Ireland, Thomas O’Connor defined Jansenism as “a complex, multi-faceted movement within early modern Catholicism that responded to fundamental challenges of contemporary experience of religion2”, which thoroughly contributed to shape a nation’s history, memory, identity and politics. The later connotations it received, however, had something of a negative impact, as the term itself was subject to misapprehension. Generally understood by Catholics as “a heretical movement amply warranting its repeated condemnation by Rome3” while “Protestant polemicists tended to view it as symptomatic of dysfunctional Catholicism”, it was indeed dismissed by free-thinking scholars as a rigorist and rather archaic derivative of Catholicism.

3 Historically, Jansenism was depicted and commonly understood as the very syndrome of the pervasive moral oppression which the Irish people had had to endure centuries throughout, and had little, if nothing, to do with the doctrine and philosophy of Port- Royal. Elements that illustrate this particular aspect are numerous. In a brief passage from his study on Irish cultural life, evoking the “strange marital abstemiousness of the Irish countryman and woman4”, Terence Brown had also recalled the negative impact the word had in Irish rural life. He illustrates this through the example of a

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stereotypical discourse on rural Ireland in which the “abstemiousness was somehow attractive to a Celtic people whose religious tradition had included masochistic excesses of penitential zeal and whose mythology and imaginative literature had combined male solidarity with heroic idealism5”.

4 The very word, then, was closely associated with the idea of social and intellectual paralysis, of strict religious morals and sexual repression, of an overall dreary, mirthless, and submissive attitude of the Irish to existence in the face of historical adversity. Moreover, its widespread practice in terms of morals, gender relationships and religion inexorably led to a sense of inferiority and frustration. Taking up elements of a previous analysis, James M. Wilson points out that Jansenism moreover “signified Irish cultural as well as political failure” to meet up with the advances of “other European cultures that had entered with far less trauma onto the cosmopolitan riches of modernity6”. Within artistic circles, the word likewise recalled the subservient condition of art, which itself was prone, moreover, to failure because of its subsidiary status in Irish cultural life – since nationalism and politics came foremost. Beckett’s articles on Irish poets and artists underline their respective effort to either find a voice of their own, or conform instead to the ideas of the Irish revival, displaying then “a rupture of the lines of communication” between Irish art and European modernism7.

5 Samuel Beckett’s mentor and friend in Trinity College, T. B Rudmose-Brown, obviously shared this defiance towards religious thought. Rudmose-Brown is depicted by James Knowlson as a “highly unorthodox, even controversial figure8” who “interminably argued about religion9”, was “a staunch believer in individual freedom10”, and who “could become apopleptic with rage when speaking about the increasing stranglehold that he saw the Catholic Church exerting on the newly created Irish State11”. This belief found its way into his writings and lectures on 17th century French literature. In an essay, Rudmose-Brown fittingly represented Racine as a fellow free-thinker, avoiding to mention the French dramatist’s complex relationship with Port-Royal12. He argued that Racine shrewdly conformed to the social and religious conventions of his time only to preserve himself from needless pressure and his art from censorship: “Racine is a very great poet. He accepted the seventeenth century ideal outwardly; he may even have believed he accepted it inwardly. But he was too great a poet to act upon it13”. Racine then, was too exceptional a genius to allow religion to pervade or corrupt his art. Grace McKingley’s 1931 lecture notes on Racine indicate that Beckett also thought Jansenism to have only been incidental at one point upon Racine’s writing, as “[F]rom 1675 on, Racine was losing his place in the court, so he may have gone back to Jansenism – faute de mieux – knowing the precarious faith of the king”14, and also pointed out that Phèdre “is the first play of Racine to bring in the sense of sin”, or at least “appears to be” so, the point being that Racine states this same acknowledgement of sin as “a false awareness”, which is “the final statement of the Racine invariable” where the tension between desire and the mind culminates to an unprecedented intensity.

6 Rudmose-Brown (and Beckett for that matter) was no isolated example of this kind of intellectual defiance towards the strictures of (loosely-defined) Jansenism, leading to a reappraisal of the place of seemingly religious writers in the European canon. Efforts to diminish the impact of Port-Royal upon authors of such unique genius as Racine and Pascal were pervasive throughout the first decades of the twentieth century – not just in a specific Irish context. In France, the 1923 celebration of Pascal’s tricentenary

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heightened a general uneasiness before the very idea of his professed sympathy for the Jansenist cause. Léon Brunschvicg and Maurice Blondel, amongst other foremost figures of that time, endeavoured to find some kind of compromise (as others did with Racine), and contended that what remained universal was his unique genius. Religion, then, would just have been an occasion for both to write in an unforgettable idiom. Full acceptance of both their attachment to Port-Royal only came later, after the late 1960’s, as growing interest in Port-Royal’s philosophy, as well as its literary and spiritual repercussions in the 17th century became a vast terrain for scholarly research.

7 On the other hand, the corresponding themes of solitude and withdrawal, of defiance towards authority and intellectual commitment to a given cause, were also closely connected with Port-Royal’s solitaires, mainly through the figure of Pascal, something which certainly appealed to Beckett, just as Pascal’s questioning of inherited forms of language did15. Indeed, Pascal wrote against the tedious and pompous rhetoric of scholastic treatises, advocating a style that would ideally respect an essential prerogative: “Il faut de l’agréable et du réel, mais il faut que cet agréable soit lui-même pris du vrai16.” Pascal’s prose was admired and deemed unique for its brevity and clarity, and its haunting, syncopated and somewhat musical rhythm through repetition – as mainly illustrated in the Pensées. The Letters also encountered universal praise; in Port-Royal (1840-59), the work he dedicated most of his life to, still considered by many scholars as an invaluable source of information17, Sainte-Beuve considered it to be Pascal’s true masterpiece – he quoted and approved Voltaire’s phrase (“toutes les sortes d’éloquence y sont renfermées18”), and retained the idea that the work was unsurpassed in its brilliant display of all the forms of rhetorical virtuosity in the French language19.

8 Beckett had read passages from Sainte-Beuve’s Port-Royal at TCD, and although his reticence to give sources has often been underlined, there is also evidence that he knew about the Logic of Port-Royal and its impact upon religious doctrine. Accordingly, Arnauld and Nicole’s La Logique ou l’Art de Penser (1662) has often been mentioned for its likely appeal on Beckett, and critics such as Frederick N. Smith have even argued that Beckett’s literary achievement could not be fully understood without the formalist description of language in the Logique20.

9 Thus, Beckett’s knowledge of, and engagement with the three major components of cultural Jansenism in the 17th century – the drama of Racine, the philosophy of Pascal and the logic of Port-Royal – cannot be disputed. My main concern in this essay, however, will be with the second of these, and more specifically with the vision and prose informing the Pensées or the Lettres Provinciales21. In particular I wish to confront Pascal’s reflections on language with the interrogations which the reluctant choice of words leads to in Malone Dies, and consider the way in which the attitude towards language at once embraces and rejects the principles Pascal had laid out in his early works. In doing so, I will try and explain the reasons why Beckett, the arch agnostic, may have found in Pascal’s work, and Jansenism at large, a paradoxical source of liberation – explain, in other words, how some of Beckett’s writings could espouse the philosophical contours of Jansenism while simultaneously repudiating its religious tenets.

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Pascal and the (in)validity of words

10 Although Pascal’s ideas on language partly grew out of Descartes’ contention that mathematical reasoning should ideally be adopted in all other intellectual disciplines, he was keenly aware of man’s failure to achieve such a sublime goal. In De l’esprit géométrique, he highlights the necessity, and difficulty, of arriving at consensus in language: insofar as ordinary words are inherently deficient, their validity and quality must be questioned so as to prevent the dispersal of meaning in signs, and the confusion that would follow. In order to do this, Pascal establishes distinctive rules for a clear and articulated discourse, relying on reason’s capacity to discern truth from error. He then evokes the aspects of an ideal method in the art of thinking, consisting in the preliminary effort to define all the words and then prove each proposition. This method, however, remains inaccessible to man: “méthode encore plus éminente et plus accomplie, mais où les hommes ne sauraient jamais arriver […] méthode absolument impossible22.”

11 This theoretical defiance against human language was partly compounded, however, by Pascal’s own controversial use of language within the Port-Royal circle itself, for its combative tenor was thought to be unorthodox in the discussion of matters pertaining to religion. Thus, given that mockery and irony were excluded from the rhetorical canon and thus condemned in the discussion of religious matters, the style of the Provinciales letters was deemed (by some) “unchristian” and its inherent vehemence and subtle, relentless attack in the name of truth on moral duplicity, unsettling. Reasons for this disapproval were twofold: firstly, according to Mère Angélique the all too frequent use of “improper” and violent terms was, in many ways, an affront to the duty of silence and withdrawal owned to God; and secondly, it might have been a source of amusement but no way whatsoever towards conversion. As such, though serving a righteous cause, the letters stirred needless agitation23.

12 Pascal’s early endeavour to create an idiom based on the Cartesian principles of clarity and order, while remaining open to the uncertainties of polemics and humour, is reflected in the Lettres Provinciales. Letters I and XI are perfect illustrations of the spirit of geometry at work, and yet are no less remarkable for their subtle use of comedy to relate the contemporary debate on grace. From the opening passage of the first letter, Montalte evokes his utter ignorance of theological matters and endeavours to see through the situation, first telling his correspondent that “je ne suis détrompé que d’hier24 ”. In the subsequent pages, as he gains further insight into the matter, the uselessness of the dispute is suggested by endless disagreements on the meaning of given words. Thus, the entire articulation of the text (grâce suffisante, grâce efficace, pouvoir prochain) is composed of explicitly delimited moments, succeeding one another in an ample movement of linguistic discovery. Montalte, startled by the intricate subtleties in the definition of specific words he is presented with, comes to conclude that: “il n’y aurait pas grand péril à le recevoir sans aucun sens, puisqu’il ne peut nuire que par le sens25.” From the initial surprise, there arises a growing sense of incredulity and bewilderment before the unreality of the situation Montalte is confronted to. At one point, he says that: “je ne dispute jamais du nom, pourvu qu’on m’avertisse du sens qu’on lui donne26”, an elementary precaution which Arnauld’s adversaries have evidently neglected.

13 In order to invalidate the Jesuits’ attack on Arnauld, Pascal’s fundamental argument from the onset lies in the distinction between the ordinary use of words and the

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various meanings these words have been endowed with – in the Lettres Provinciales, the diversity of opinions amongst the Jesuits themselves is but another significant manifestation of a somewhat overwhelming confusion which undermines the common stance they have taken. “Equivocal” terms are not only a mark of the weakness of language; they are subversive because of that inherent vacuity which allows concepts to be either invented or distorted. As Montalte constantly discovers new and unknown words, he tells his friend that: “Jusques-là j’avais entendu les affaires, mais ce terme me jeta dans l’obscurité27.” Montalte eventually underlines the contradiction and lack of judgement in using ill-defined words, as this goes against one of the basic tenets laid down by Pascal in De l’esprit géométrique: “Les définitions sont très libres, et elles ne sont jamais sujettes à être contredites; car il n’y a rien de plus permis que de donner à une chose qu’on a clairement désignée le nom qu’on voudra28.”

14 Although this principle should be used with reasonable caution, insofar as endless definitions would in the end only serve to undermine meaning – “Il faut seulement prendre garde qu’on n’abuse pas de la liberté qu’on a d’imposer des noms, en donnant le même à deux choses différentes29” – Pascal resorts to it in order to eliminate the possibility of his adversary’s point of view being rationally justified. Similarly, after evoking various possible sources of disagreement with his Jesuit opponents, Montalte eventually cries out: “c’est se jouer de paroles de dire que vous êtes d’accord à cause de termes communs que vous usez, quand vous êtes contraires dans le sens30.” What is implied here is that if such a contradictory attitude to words and meaning is possible, then these words are utterly devoid of ontological stability.

15 Words are thus defined as a reduction of both meaning and reality even as this is the very condition for the possibility of language and communication In order to facilitate speech, the patterns of reality have been simplified by men: far from holding the universal reach Descartes would have endowed it with31, language is approximate, and nominal choices are necessarily arbitrary32. In De l’esprit géométrique, Pascal says that “ce n’est pas avoir l’esprit juste que de confondre par des comparaisons si inégales la nature immuable des choses avec leurs noms libres et volontaires, et dépendant du caprice des hommes qui les ont composés33”.

On the (de)limitation of language in Malone Dies

16 Beckett’s closeness to Pascal resides in the principle that the disjunction between the linguistic and ontological orders is a sign of the essential vacuity in language, the inferior realm to which all things human pertain. Since nominal definitions describe the tension of thought in the apprehension of things, no access to the nature of the objects of thought per se, or to the essence of verbal references, is ultimately possible

17 Reflecting upon the nature of speech, the occasion that produces it, and the very moment in which it is produced, Beckett came to consider, in ways not unlike Port- Royal, the gulf between words and reality. That confusion should prevail upon the (Cartesian) endeavour to bestow permanent meaning (“signification”) upon words and find an absolute language inspired from reason, brings about further correspondences with the ontological stance towards language and style the writers of Port-Royal sought to develop in their own time. Inasmuch as this ethical project is carried out in the early prose works and indeed throughout Beckett’s writing career as a whole, studying the ways in which (probable) reference to the Port-Royalist philosophy of language and

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Pascal’s influence are central will bring about possibilities of interpretation that go beyond linguistic formalism.

18 A revealing aspect in that respect is the thematic pattern of overwhelming incomprehension, the irreducibility of the real to words, that pervades the prose and indeed most of the drama. Watt, and Beckett’s later characters, clearly express a sense of alienation before habitual linguistic forms that seem to have been at one point imposed upon them and either search for a more adequate language or yearn to reach silence through the very exhaustion of words. Molloy, for instance, having (finally) broken away from Lousse, seems to be alluding to Pascal’s insistence on axioms of order and incidence in a proposition, when he muses on the fact that “[T]here are things from time to time, in spite of everything, that impose themselves on the understanding with the force of axioms, for unknown reasons34”.

19 Malone, on the other hand, though striving to conform to “what reason counsels35”, comes close to Pascal’s own endeavour in the Provinciales, as one of his constant preoccupations is to find the right word. In Malone Dies the problem is first addressed in terms of a tangible delimitation of language – Malone’s preliminary step is to define succeeding moments of his reflection, by making a brief “inventory”, and specifying from the onset, possibly in mock-recognition of the ineffectuality of Pascal’s esprit de finesse, that his “desire is henceforward to be clear, without being finical36”. The ideal of an efficient discourse is immediately undermined by his “old quibbles”, when he says that “[I]t is better to adopt the simplest explanation, even if it is not simple, even if it does not explain very much”, and “at the last moment correct inadequacies”, which he never does (or has time to). On finding a point (or points) of departure Malone at first is irresolute – he is soon to point out that he is “back at [his] old aporetics” – and hence decides to “speak of the things that are in my possessions”. Consequently the desire to follow the principle of a clear and ordered discourse is immediately thwarted by an underlying, contradictory impulse, for Malone eventually admits that “reason has not much hold on me right now”. It is as though the wish to conform to the ideal of a rational language were instantly impaired, just as the four stories Malone had intended to tell will be successively interrupted, and abandoned, the character having repeatedly failed to find the expected enjoyment (divertissement) sought with the advent of each new story, as the ongoing refrain (“what tedium”) clearly suggests. Malone’s principal dread is to linger on something that might bring about meaning or an occasion for reasoning. Indeed, as he recapitulates, much in the way of Pascal, his latest developments, he particularly insists on the fact “There are things I do not understand. But nothing to signify37”, and concludes that “I can go on” – at least temporarily.

20 The first story, interrupted by occasional digressions, is built up through contradiction. The expressions that are used can be related to Pascal through the very choice of words. In parallel fashion to Montalte’s quest for truth, Sapo’s quest for knowledge is doomed to fail from the onset, for “Somewhere in this turmoil thought struggles on38” – hence, as Malone emphatically puts it, the desire to “let it wreak its dying rage” on others. Sapo’s yearning for knowledge is somewhat contradicted by the fact that “He attended his classes with his mind elsewhere39”. Just as his taste for mathematics, however, seems to give him some kind of understanding of the real, so his interest in nature is held back because of an incapacity to grasp things coherently: “he did not know how to look at all these things, the looks he rained upon them taught him nothing about them40”. Impervious to rational methods, and alienated from the real

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(and others) as he is, Sapo still remains “tempted by the knowledge of these strange things” nature comprises, but emphasis is mainly put on his state of enviable stupefaction. Such subtle displacements, eventually leading to the destitution of metaphysics, seem to have become a constant aesthetic pattern in Beckett’s own prose – albeit through the use of parody and humour. Even in the passages that most clearly refer to Cartesian principles we find that inescapable Pascalian sense of contingency and misery that undermines the characteristic, formerly inalterable reliance on reason: this system of echoes, built throughout the entire work, finds one of its most significant forms in the impossibility to define essence, echoing back to the Pensées: He was sorry he had not learnt the art of thinking […] and sorry he could make no meaning of the babel raging in his head, the doubts, desires, imaginings and dreads. And a little less well endowed with strength and courage too he would have abandoned and despaired of ever knowing what manner of being he was, and how he was going to live, and lived vanquished, blindly, in a mad world, in the midst of strangers41.

21 Obviously, there are in this passage identifiable expressions that refer to specific Cartesian terms: phrases such as “manner of being”, for instance, imitate Descartes’ use of scholastic definitions as he establishes the actual distinction between body and soul – “modal distinction” being necessary to distinguish substance from manner42. Conformity with the Cartesian principle of method is respected and taken up insofar as the shape of language and discourse is concerned. However, the confusion that arises from that innermost incapacity or aversion to grasp the “first principles” of metaphysics enables language to give different shapes to the void. Negativity only becomes positive in the moment when that very incapacity or reluctance to approve the hypothesis deriving from the cogito and its consequences is irrevocably ascertained. The “art of thinking”, with its Cartesian overtones, undoubtedly hints at Port-Royal as well. What is undermined here is the capacity to think adequately – allowing language to lapse into a form reminiscent of Pascal’s many later elaborations on man’s disproportion. Form and expression consequently become primary, displaying the ontological insufficiency of words, even as digression and hesitation are deliberately made to replace the defining principles of order and clarity.

22 In the Pensées, Pascal’s fundamental argument is that the impossibility to affix meaning to words reflects the absence of centre: multiplicity (diversité) is but another declination of that inherent reality. The only solution for the individual seeking to establish his own subjective identity in the unsteady multiplicity of being is to accept an approximate one, because there always remains a discrepancy between the object of speech and the very source of speech itself, the ‘I’ that speaks. The prose therefore slips into a form of expression closer to Pascal, with the rejection of the very assets of Cartesian metaphysics, and logic.

23 Characters, or voices in the trilogy are therefore incapable of reasoning “selon les lumières naturelles”, and their efforts are the constant object of mockery. In his description of Sapo’s temperament Malone says: “Nothing is less like me than this patient, reasonable child, struggling all alone for years to shed a little light upon himself, avid of the least gleam, a stranger to the joys of darkness.43”

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Conclusion

24 The most striking element of Pascal’s prose and use of the comic is his unforgiving, mathematical precision in the demonstration he undertakes, leaving no alternative but for his adversaries to yield, or persist in error. Crucially, the comic participates in an aesthetic of imperfection, characterized by a systematizing function where endless listings of possibilities, pervasive paradoxes, digressions, and aporia, are combined with the use of parody to subdue the voice of reason and undermine the classical imperatives of order and measure in a continuous exercise of impoverishment. Set in contrast with a clear and demonstrative style, the discourse of the Jesuits is characterized by the lack of coincidence between expression and meaning. If any connexions between Beckett’s prose and the Lettres Provinciales were to be made, then, they would eventually reside in the Jesuits’ use of words. As Malone knowingly says at one point, “Aesthetics are therefore on my side, at least a certain kind of aesthetics”. All in all, the forms of discourse in Beckett’s prose seem to fall short from corresponding to Pascal’s (early) ideal of an absolute language, only to echo later with the Unnamable the (perhaps) more properly Jansenist theme of the absent centre.

NOTES

1. Samuel Beckett, The Unnamable (1959) in Three Novels: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable, (1966), London, Calder Press, 2003, p. 235. 2. Thomas O’Connor, Irish Jansenists 1600-79: Religion and Politics in Flanders, France, Ireland and Rome, Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2008, p. 15. 3. Ibid. 4. Terence Brown, Ireland: A Social and Cultural History, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1985, p. 18. 5. Ibid., p. 19. 6. James Matthew Wilson, “Religious and Political Representations in Denis Devlin’s poetry”, Eíre/Ireland, 42.3-4, Fall/Winter 2007, p. 35-59. 7. Samuel Beckett, “Recent Irish Poetry”, Disjecta: Miscellaneous writings and a Dramatic Fragment, [1983], London, Calder Press, 2001, p. 72. Beckett accordingly rejected the idea that art could bring meaning and coherence to modern life – whether in a specific (Irish) context or not. In his article on Denis Devlin’s poetry, he says that art is to be thoroughly dissociated from “social reality”, because it must stand by itself, as it emerges from the “need […] whose end is its own end”, requiring “minimum rational interference”. 8. James Knowlson, Damned to Fame: the life of Samuel Beckett, London: Bloomsbury, 1995, p. 48-50. 9. Ibid., p. 49.

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10. Ibid. 11. Ibid. 12. See Raymond Picard, La carrière de Jean Racine, Paris, Gallimard/NRF, 1961. A (slight) readjustment is therefore necessary. Racine’s attitude towards Port-Royal and Jansenism was indeed ambivalent throughout his life; though haunted by that heritage, he overtly adopted an ironic, even hostile stance towards its doctrine and people, but finally reconciled with Arnauld and Nicole, writing Phèdre (1677). However, throughout his life and work, he solely identified religion with the doctrine of Port-Royal, and in his plays, the inner torment endured by his characters echoes in many ways the suffering of being Pascal described in the Pensées. Both Pascal and Racine struggled against the all too authoritative pressure that Port-Royal would have forced upon them, but eventually strove to defend it. Concerning the controversy on grace, Pascal himself had always vindicated his own freedom of thought: “Quelle raison en avez- vous? Vous dites que je suis janséniste, que le Port-Royal soutient les cinq propositions, et qu’ainsi je les soutiens. Trois mensonges.” Blaise Pascal, Pensées, ed. Michel Le Guern, Paris: Folio Classique, 2004, fragment 741. 13. T. B Rudmose-Brown, French Literary Studies, Dublin, Talbot Press, 1917, p. 14. 14. In Beckett Remembering/Remembering Beckett : uncollected Interviews with Samuel Beckett and Memories of Those Who Knew Him, ed. James and Elizabeth Knowlson, London, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2006, p. 307-308. The following quotations are taken from the same pages. 15. In addition, (discreet) references to Pascal and Jansenism can be found in his notes on Wilhem Windelband’s History of Philosophy. 16. Blaise Pascal, Pensées (1670), éd. Michel Le Guern, Paris, Gallimard (Folio Classique), 2004, fragment 562. 17. See, for instance, Philippe Sellier’s “Introduction” to Port-Royal, op. cit., p. XXIX : “Aujourd’hui que les contestations tapageuses des nouvelles critiques des années 1960 et 1970 ont cédé la place à une intégration sereine de leurs apports, Sainte-Beuve s’impose comme le plus grand critique de notre histoire littéraire, et le Port-Royal comme son chef-d’œuvre.” 18. Sainte-Beuve, Port-Royal [1840-1859], III.3, éd . Philippe Sellier, Paris, Laffont, 1994, p. 587. 19. From Beckett’s correspondence we know that he also read Sainte-Beuve’s Conversations du lundi, in which some articles are dedicated to the foremost figures of Port-Royal, mainly Racine and Pascal. 20. See “Beckett and the Seventeenth Century Port-Royal Logic”, Journal of Modern Literature, Feb. 1976, Vol. 5.1, p. 99-109. 21. Another reference to Pascals writings can be found in “La Peinture de Van Velde ou Le Monde et le Pantalon”, as Beckett directly quotes from the Pensées: “Impossible de vouloir autre l’inconnu, l’enfin vu, dont le centre est partout et la circonférence nulle part ; ni le seul agent capable de le faire cesser; ni le but, qui est de le faire cesser.” The phrase is itself taken from the fragment on disproportion, with its depiction of God as a “sphère dont le centre est partout et la circonférence nulle part”. Likewise, The Unammable’s “incompréhensible inquiétude” before the changeable aspect of the real, echoes back to Pascal’s many musings on the incomprehensible nature of man, and the

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irrevocable disproportion between man and God after the Fall. See Blaise Pascal, Pensées , op. cit., fragment 185. 22. Pascal, De l’esprit géométrique, Ecrits sur la grâce et autres textes, Paris, Garnier Flammarion, 2000, p. 65-66. 23. See Dominique Descotes, “Force et violence dans le discours chez Antoine Arnauld”, in Antoine Arnauld, philosophie du langage et de la connaissance: études, ed. Jean-Claude Pariente, Paris, Vrin, 1995, p. 35. 24. Blaise Pascal, Les Provinciales (1656-57), éd. Michel Le Guern, Paris, Gallimard (Folio Classique), 2005, p. 43. 25. Ibid., p. 47-48. 26. Ibid. 27. Ibid., p. 45. 28. Ibid. 29. Blaise Pascal, De l’esprit géométrique, p. 157. 30. Blaise Pascal, Les Provinciales, p. 47. 31. See Vincent Carraud, Pascal, des connaissances naturelles à l’étude de l’homme, Paris, Vrin, 2007, p. 153: “S’il [Pascal] révoque la scientia ou la sapientia universalis de Descartes, en tant qu’elle prétend accéder à l’universel, c’es parce qu’il découvre cet universel infini. L’infini (puissance de déconceptualisation), ruine ici l’accès proprement cartésien à l’universel. Dans “Disproportion de l’homme”, l’infini subvertit le concept cartésien d’universel, Pascal y nie rien de moins que la capacité de l’entendement à tout constituer comme son objet”. 32. See Delphine Reguig-Naya, Le Corps des Idées: Pensées et poétiques du langage dans l’augustinisme de Port-Royal, Arnauld, Nicole, Pascal, Mme de Lafayette, Racine, Paris, Honoré Champion, 2007, p. 69: “La pensée suscite le langage et lui donne sens mais elle ne peut régler la circulation effective de ce sens dans le dialogue qui peut se dérober au sens. […] De fait, la définition du signe comme support sensible de l’idée interdit au langage de fonctionner d’emblée sur le mode d’une transitivité transparente. Le dualisme de la nature humaine se prolonge dans la faculté linguistique et peut priver la pensée de son exercice”. 33. Blaise Pascal, De l’esprit géométrique, p. 80. 34. Samuel Beckett, Molloy, in Three Novels, p. 63. 35. Samuel Beckett, Malone Dies, in Three Novels, p. 181. 36. Ibid., p. 181-2. The subsequent quotes are taken from the same pages. 37. Ibid., p. 190. 38. Ibid., p. 187. 39. Ibid., p. 190. 40. Ibid. 41. Ibid., p. 131. 42. See for instance Descartes, Les Principes de la Philosophie (1644), Paris, Vrin, 2002, p. 84-5. 43. Samuel Beckett, Malone Dies, in Three Novels, p. 192.

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ABSTRACTS

Because of its doctrinal rigorousness and emphasis on penitential zeal, the pressure exerted by Catholicism in 1920’s and 1930’s Ireland has sometimes been likened to the growing influence of Jansenism in late 17th century France. In that respect, the biography and works of Samuel Beckett highlight an interesting scholarly dilemma. Although he went into a life-long exile precisely because he resented the culturally stultifying atmosphere of the Irish Free State, and may have found in the typically anti-religious stance of French intellectualism a confirmation of his own defiance against religious creeds, his early interest in the literary and philosophical manifestations of French Jansenism somehow complexifies the issue. As this article will argue, using a comparison between Pascal’s Pensées and Malone Dies, Beckett’s own brand of intellectualism seems to stand halfway between the fully antagonistic stance of the free thinker and the unconditional acceptance of an imposed doctrine.

En raison de la rigueur doctrinaire et de l’accent mis sur le zèle pénitent, la pression exercée par le Catholicisme dans l’Irlande des années 1920 et 1930 a parfois été assimilée à l’influence grandissante du Jansénisme sur la France de la seconde moitié du XVIIe siècle. De ce point de vue, la biographie et l’œuvre de Samuel Beckett présentent des ambiguïtés qui ne sont pas sans intérêt pour le chercheur. Si son exil durable fut largement motivé par le malaise que lui causait l’atmosphère culturellement étouffante qui régnait à l’époque de l’État Libre, et s’il a très probablement trouvé dans les positions traditionnellement anti-cléricales de l’intellectualisme à la française une confirmation de sa méfiance envers les croyances religieuses, l’intérêt qu’il a très tôt manifesté pour les productions littéraires et philosophiques du Jansénisme en France jette un éclairage plus complexe sur la question. Comme cet article entend le démontrer, en s’appuyant sur une comparaison entre les Pensées de Pascal et Malone Dies, la propre position intellectuelle de Beckett semble se situer quelque part entre le point de vue résolument conflictuel du libre penseur, et la soumission sans condition à une doctrine imposée.

INDEX

Mots-clés: philosophie - jansénistes, intellectuels, relations franco-irlandaises, Beckett Samuel Keywords: philosophy - jansenism, intellectuals, Franco-Irish relations, Beckett Samuel

AUTHOR

MÉLANIE FOEHN University of Kent/Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3

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Aristotle’s concept of energeia in Autumn Journal by Louis MacNeice, poet, classics scholar and intellectual

Mélanie White

1 As a classics scholar, a Thirties poet, and later a teacher of Greek at the university of Birmingham, MacNeice was involved in different types of intellectual circles. While his public-school education at Marlborough School and subsequent degree from Merton College Oxford render him the archetype of the perfect scholar, one finds at the core of MacNeice’s poetic career a tension between a feeling of belonging to the upper-class and an even stronger need to connect with the rest of society, what he called “the ordinary people”. This great awareness of class distinctions is turned against himself in many ironical and even scornful comments he makes about his own upbringing, and more specifically about his classical training. In canto XIII of Autumn Journal, MacNeice remains ironically sceptical about the proclaimed greatness of the education he received: “I ought to be glad / That I studied the classics at Marlborough and Merton”. His lack of enthusiasm becomes a criticism of the class-oriented nature of a classical education: We learned that a gentleman never misplaces his accents, […] That the boy on the Modern Side is merely a parasite But the classical student is bred to the purple, his training in syntax Is also a training in thought And even in morals; if called to the bar or the barracks He always will do what he ought1.

2 In this ironical portrait of the classics scholar as an exemplary member of society with a strong sense of duty and high morals, a well-mannered “gentleman” is also an intellectual: “And I got my honours degree / And was stamped as a person of intelligence and culture2”. In such a static view of society, the intellectual is defined by MacNeice not only by his “intelligence and culture” but by his inability to connect with

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reality and the contemporary life which surrounds him. A comment made by MacNeice in his autobiography after moving to Birmingham to take up a teaching position, at the beginning of the 1930s, thus expresses this lack of connection and its resulting uselessness: Living in Birmingham had reconciled me to ordinary people; I found reassurance in silent gardeners, inefficient hospital nurses, in a golfer cupping a match in his hands in the wind, in business men talking shop in the train. I found no such reassurance in the intelligentsia. I remembered how under the Roman Empire intellectuals spent their time practising rhetoric although they would never use it for any practical purpose; they swam gracefully around in rhetoric like fish in an aquarium tank. And our intellectuals also seemed to be living in tanks3.

3 MacNeice thus criticizes the intellectuals of his time for distancing themselves from life, secure in the unreachable safety of an aquarium, looking out but not putting into practical use their knowledge and abilities. The opposite and more meaningful role of the intellectual, according to MacNeice, is political involvement, a social role embodied by the Thirties poets’ interest in Communism: But there was an important exception – the group of poets who had appeared in New Signatures, published in 1931. They were all politically Left […]. The strongest appeal of the Communist Party was that it demanded sacrifice; you had to sink your ego. At the moment there seemed to be a confusion between the state and the community, and I myself was repelled by the idolisation of the state […]. I had a certain hankering to sink my ego, but was repelled by the priggishness of the Comrades […]. I joined them however in their hatred of the status quo, I wanted to smash the aquarium4.

4 MacNeice is situated on the verge of both possible alternative roles of the intellectual. While he wanted on the one hand to “smash the aquarium” and break the separation between intellectuals and real life within society, he always refused to take a strong political stance and remained at a distance from the other Thirties poets in that matter. MacNeice’s own understanding of the role of the intellectual seemed to stem from his reading of Greek philosophers more than from political involvement. Despite the sometimes ironical and off-hand manner with which he recalled his classical training, and the criticism he made of the class distinctions attached to such a scholarly education, MacNeice built his own intellectual posture on the grounds of his knowledge and understanding of Greek culture, more specifically on the definition of the real and the actual inherited from Aristotle’s Metaphysics, and on the role model of the Greek poet of the 5th century B.C. Thanks to Aristotelian concepts, MacNeice was able to define his place and role as intellectual, poet, and man within society.

5 MacNeice’s direct relationship with the historical moment of his times is transcribed in its very immediacy thanks to the form of the journal, as in Autumn Journal, published in 1939. He explores diverse illustrations of Aristotle’s concept of energeia, a notion which puts forward the primary role of movement, both motion and activity, in the belief that the only complete reality is actuality. MacNeice’s interest in Aristotle’s concept of actualization through motion as an end in itself also influences his representation of man as a participant in an organic community. Aristotle’s definition of man as a “political animal” is linked in MacNeice’s works to the status of the Greek poet of the 5th century B.C. Still, MacNeice considers man’s essential nature as distinct from his being part of a community, a collective form with shifting margins and conflicting values. Man’s essential existence is indeed illustrated in Autumn Journal, following Aristotle’s Poetics, as “man-in-action”, and he is included in the overall motion of the

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actual. We shall see how, through his reading of Aristotle’s concept of energeia in the Metaphysics, MacNeice refines throughout Autumn Journal a perception of the present tense, first of all as perpetual motion and secondly as a representation of the actual as distinct from the real. Finally, we will see how MacNeice, following Aristotelian concepts, defines the essential role of man within a community and as man-in-action.

The present as perpetual motion

6 MacNeice’s refusal to adhere to any specific political creed does not entail a removal from the contemporary life of his times. On the contrary, the entrenchment of his poetry in the present moment is both a concern for everyday living and a necessity to record through very minute and detailed sensations the concrete passing of time. The form of the journal that he chose for his two long poems, Autumn Journal (1939) and Autumn Sequel (1953), written during particularly tense historical periods, testifies to his need to record, and report, on a day-to-day basis events that make reality, as he explains in his preface to Autumn Journal: In a journal or a personal letter a man writes what he feels at the moment; […] I was writing it from August 1938 until the New Year and have not altered any passages relating to public events in the time of what happened after the time of writing5.

7 It is therefore striking that in these two journals MacNeice makes a recurring use of references to Greek philosophers and historians, while he is first and foremost recalling the present as he is experiencing it. MacNeice’s scholarly knowledge of Greek philosophy is thus anything but remote and static, or distanced from any practical purpose. On the contrary, MacNeice’s understanding of Aristotle’s distinction between energeia and kinesis takes the form of a work in progress throughout Autumn Journal. This notion enables him to place movement at the centre of his representation of reality, and to make the present a transitory stage, but also to create a shifting sense of time as a constant and perpetually re-activated and re-actualized process. MacNeice thus tried to understand Aristotle’s separation between energeia and kinesis: Aristotle the biologist was anxious to avoid the gulf between Being and Becoming established by Plato the mathematician. His concept of energeia – significant and so, in a sense, eternal movement exemplified in the time world – was an antidote to the static and self-contained heaven of Plato’s transcendent Forms. But when you look into him you find he does not go far enough: reality, rescued from the One, is traced back to the infima species but not the individual unit, while his distinction between energeia (significant and absolute movement) and kinesis (movement which is merely relative) restores the Platonic gulf that he has just been trying to fill in. Or so I thought. Aristotle allows that what is energeia from one angle may be kinesis from another; but in that case, I thought, kinesis also should be a permanent principle, whereas Aristotle supposes a highest grade in which mind thinks only itself and this he exempts from kinesis6.

8 MacNeice’s tentative distinction reappears in a different form in many parts of Autumn Journal. Firstly, his rephrasing of Aristotle’s energeia as “eternal movement exemplified in the time world” and “significant and absolute movement” gives to this notion a temporal value which forms the basis of his representation of the present moment as motion. In several instances, energeia as movement seems to exemplify a self-contained, in-between time zone which exists out of duration or chronology, halfway between a complete, but ultimately impossible, forgetfulness of the past and visions of a future of

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action. In Canto III, the repetition of movement exemplifies Aristotle’s notion of the purity of action in energeia: But the final cure is not in his past-dissecting fingers But in a future of action, the will and fist Of those who abjure the luxury of self-pity And prefer to risk a movement without being sure If movement would be better or worse in a hundred Years or a thousand when their heart is pure7.

9 In these lines MacNeice envisions first of all a future of action and then transfers this image onto the plane of sheer movement. Autumn Journal was written on the eve of the Second World War and throughout this long poem MacNeice expresses the need for action – “For they say that now it is time unequivocally to act8” – as fear and panic pervaded Europe. The immediate movement which seems to replace potential action is usually juxtaposed with other temporalities, thus severing it from mere chronology. In the lines quoted above the fixed past and the uncertain future no longer form a reliable temporal frame since movement annihilates duration, making a hundred years the same as a thousand. In other parts of Autumn Journal, memory and history appear as an ordered past whose stasis literally blocks the movement of the present moment: “That was then and now is now / Here again on a passing visit, / Passing through but how / Memory blocks the passage9”. The emphasis on “now” is even more explicit in passages where MacNeice puts on the same level the arbitrary creation of a chronology inherent in any historical format and the freedom represented by pure movement. Movement, in its perpetually renewed rhythm, becomes the only present tense, usually associated to an –ING verb form: And still the acquiring of unrelated facts, A string of military dates for history, […] And still the exhilarating rhythm of free Movement swimming or serving at tennis10.

10 The rhythm based on the anaphoric repetition of “and”, characteristic of the whole of Autumn Journal, is broken by “movement”, which stands out as something more meaningful than the accumulation of historical and cultural landmarks – facts, dates, and random knowledge. Similarly, the repetition of “still”, meaning both persistence and immobility, reinforces the idea of a repetitive movement frozen in its very actualization. In the in-between state of energeia, movement as process does not produce anything beyond itself but is complete in its actualization. In the Metaphysics, Aristotle places motion as the source of his distinction between the potential and the actual: The distinction of potentiality and actualization exists in each class of things, and motion is the actualization of the potential as such […]. Motion takes place when the actualization itself exists, and neither before or after. Thus the actualization of that which is potentially, when it exists actually, not as itself but as movable, is motion. […] Motion, then, is the actualization of the potential qua potential. That motion is what we have defined as being, and exists only when the actualization itself exists, is clear11.

11 In canto XX of Autumn Journal, which recalls a visit to the National Gallery in London, MacNeice uses a pictorial metaphor to represent such a movement. If the scenes represented in the still lifes of the museum are motionless due to the very nature of

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their material, MacNeice can still decipher the potential movement at the source of their creation as they represent the endless repetition of time: And the still life proclaiming with aplomb The self-content of bread or fruit or vases […] The sea of the past glimmers with white horses, A paradigm Of life’s successions, treacheries, recessions; […] And history has refuted them and yet They cast their shadows on us like aspersions; Propellers and white horses, Movement, movement, can we never forget The movements of the past which should be dead12?

12 The fact that these paintings convey movement contradicts the immobility of a chronologically distant past. The motions, frozen as they are in the process of their actualization in the still lifes, partake of a temporal structure suspended over traditional chronology where the past is dead and only the present is alive. In the last question, the ability to forget the past, which is the sine qua none condition to live in the present, is in fact made impossible by the omnipresence of movement. Movement becomes the only reality the poet is able to grasp. MacNeice thus creates a temporality based on sheer movement, on a never-achieved process which defies the linearity of past and present, in a time frame where duration has no value. In the lines quoted above, MacNeice distinguishes the past in the still lifes, represented as a dynamic stage thanks to its inherent movement (“the sea of the past”, “the movements of the past”) and history, which elaborates a selection: “history has refuted them”. The scenes on these paintings are “refuted” by history, it would seem, because they are forever frozen in the state of energeia, unable to achieve entelechia, a completeness which would qualify as history.

The actual and the real

13 Indeed, the overall centrality of the process rather than its resulting product reinforces MacNeice’s preference for energeia (ενέργεια) over entelechia (εντεέχεια) in Aristotelian terms. In his commentary on the original text of the Metaphysics, W. D. Ross throws light on this distinction and its relation to kinesis: […] it appears that strictly speaking ενέργεια means activity or actualization, while εντελέχεια means the resulting actuality or perfection. Yet ενέργεια is not a movement towards something more than itself; this is the difference between it and κίνησις13.

14 By focusing on the process, MacNeice builds his journal on the representation of the

F0 “actual” as distinct from the “real” in Aristotelian terms. In book Θ 20 of the Metaphysics, Aristotle gives the following definition of “actuality”: “The word ‘actuality’, which we connect with ‘complete reality’, refers originally to movement: hence we do not ascribe movement to non-existent things, though we assign to them predicates like ‘thinkable’ because they will sometime actually exist14”.

15 MacNeice keeps the link between actuality and movement in order to apprehend the contemporary only through actual motion. In canto XIV, where MacNeice recalls his

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classical education, he puts forward Aristotle’s distinction between the real and the actual: And it made one confident to think that nothing Really was what it seemed under the sun, That the actual was not the real and the real was not with us And all that mattered was the One15.

16 What he calls “the actual” shapes the main material of Autumn Journal, as he strives to convey the suspension of time in the process of its actualisation. Such a representation of the present was criticized in 1941 by a reviewer for being “too topical, too transitory, too reportorial16”. Similar criticisms were made about MacNeice’s second long poetic journal, Autumn Sequel, and he thought these comments stemmed from a misunderstanding of the basic nature of such an undertaking: “… one very long poem, Autumn Sequel, the point of which was missed by most of the book-reviewers, was “occasional” but not casual, being an attempt to marry myth to ‘actuality’17”. MacNeice’s choice of the term “actuality” to explain the value of the transitory nature of Autumn Sequel underlines the value he ascribes to such a concept. The distinction MacNeice makes between “occasional” and “casual” similarly emphasizes that “actuality” is, according to him, the core of the contemporary, its true pattern. By focusing on energeia rather than entelechia, MacNeice aims at reproducing the transitory nature of the real. If energeia is indeed a process with shifting characteristics, it is valuable in its authenticity and truth as it allows the poet to record the permanent principle of movement as he is himself creating his own poetic work, in a time zone which suspends chronology.

17 The fluidity with which classical references are woven into daily meditations throughout Autumn Journal is apparent in the way MacNeice mixes two different notions based on movement to deal with the contemporary, as he confronts the centrality of flux in Heraclitus’ philosophy with Aristotle’s energeia. By using these two concepts for two distinct temporalities, MacNeice elaborates a time frame for the present moment. What distinguishes these two concepts is the opposition between the constant change in the flux and the perpetual repetition of the same in energeia. This difference enables MacNeice to draw the line between “reality” and “actuality”. While at university, MacNeice recognised the flux as reality (“Heraclitus recognised the flux – and one has to do that to be modern18”), adding: […] we were pathetically eager to be realist (which meant the mimesis of flux), but we always fell back upon Form. This paradox came out in our admiration for contemporary novelists – Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf – who give you the flux but serve it on golden platters. […] The flux is reality, so has to be recognised, but you can make this recognition with style19.

18 MacNeice pinpoints here his appreciation, as a poet, of the flux in the contemporary novels of his time. He also underlines the difficult balance to be achieved in poetry between realism as mimesis and the constraints of the poem, what he calls “Form” and “style”. The realism MacNeice linked to the use of the flux by the contemporary novelists of his time becomes a concern for actuality more than reality in his poetry. It seems that for MacNeice, while flux is the necessary metaphor for real mimesis in modern novels, poetry requires a different pattern. In Autumn Journal, energeia entails a vertical representation of time where the process, and its repetition, never reach the state of entelechia, and thus never enter the chronological and linear representation of history as progress and advance. What is striking in Autumn Journal is the coexistence of

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detailed time markers (as, for instance, in canto XII: “This is Tuesday / The 25th of October, 193820”) which accurately situate the time of writing of each canto within a larger chronological order, the cyclical return of the seasons that give a rhythm to the poem as a whole (as it begins in Canto I with “Close and slow, summer is ending in Hampshire21”), and the representation of history as an arbitrary line of events which form the background to the present in motion, exemplified in the suspension of duration in energeia. The juxtaposition of these different time scales triggers the visualisation of several embedded strata of reality, where the actual occupies the foreground. The flux is kept by MacNeice only in relation to history, and it exemplifies the poet’s difficulty to accept the linear progression of time between past and present, a traditional historical representation he refuses in order to place the present as the only “actual” temporality. Hence, the image of the “stream of history” used in canto XIV22 reappears in canto XV with the image of the river representing both constant flux and the impossibility of repetition it entails: You can’t step into the same river twice so there can’t be Ghosts; thank God that rivers always flow. Sufficient to the moment is the moment; Past and future merely don’t make sense And yet I thought I had seen them… But how, if there is only a present tense23?

19 These lines illustrate MacNeice’s contrary use of the flux, to represent the linear passing of time, and energeia, to focus on the actual as a vertical moment in time suspended over chronology. While the flux is a metaphor, energeia is a matrix that enables MacNeice to re-think the present. The idea of a present “tense” is particularly interesting as it makes of the present not only a time frame, but a verbal, and thus active, stage akin to a process. Similarly, MacNeice represents the past as a no longer active verbal form, but on the contrary as a Latin form of the verb used as an adjective in order to express a fixed form of achievement, both final and past: “But life began to narrow to what was done – The dominant gerundive24”. The “dominant gerundive” of the past is opposed here to the permanent movement of the “present tense”. As a moment embedded in a permanent state of energeia, the present is in constant motion but also a perpetual repetition of the same. Throughout Autumn Journal, the growing fear of the possibility of a Second World War is felt through a sense of the present as a return of the past. If the ghosts of the past cannot step in the same river twice within the flux metaphor, they can indeed reappear in the re-actualization of energeia. Hence, in Autumn Journal, the present, staged as a minimal time unit where repetition prevails, is often a re-actualization of events that have already happened – “it has all happened before,/Just like this before25”, which focuses on the fear of a new war: And so to my flat with the trees outside the window And the dahlia shapes of the lights on Primrose Hill Whose summit once was used for a gun emplacement And very likely will Be used that way again26.

20 MacNeice’s concern with the actual thus creates a specific temporality which allows his poetic journal to fit the uncertainty of his day and the fearful contemplation of the future, with the growing tension spreading through Europe, as well as the past, with the remaining images of the First World War, threatening because they might repeat themselves.

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The poet as man-of-action

21 It comes as no surprise that it is also through references to Aristotle that MacNeice defines the status of man and poet within society in such troubled times. It seems that MacNeice, at least when he wrote Autumn Journal, defined his own role in comparison with, firstly, the intellectuals and fellow Thirties poets of his time, secondly, the role of the Greek poet of the 5th century B.C. which he found exemplary, and thirdly, the Aristotelian definition of essential man as man-in-action. MacNeice’s refusal to take part in any political movement did not reduce the necessity he felt to be a representative of the community, and hence to take up the political role of man in Aristotelian terms. The statement he makes in The Strings are False about the way the New Signatures poets, all politically Left, merged the concepts of state and community, shows how he himself perceived these two notions as distinct, and how he was ready to abolish his ego to be a representative of the community, but not of the state. The distinction between community and state made by MacNeice does not make his insertion within such a community easier. Indeed, his emphasis on man’s need to take part in a human community is a source of uncertainty throughout Autumn Journal, since the poet’s persona seems unable to define a community he could relate to and represent. In Modern Poetry, MacNeice states what is for him the role of the poet, inspired by that of the Greek poet: The poet is primarily a spokesman, making statements or incantations on behalf of himself or others – usually for both, for it is difficult to speak for oneself without speaking for others or to speak for others without speaking for oneself. […] his [the Greek poet of the 5th century B.C.] attitude as poet was not distinguished from his attitude as man, which naturally resulted in much of his poetry being didactic or moralizing. […] It was assumed that life was the source and subject of poetry. And life for the Greeks meant life within a community27.

22 The didactic nature of Greek poetry in the 5th century B.C. recalls MacNeice’s own statement in his prefatory note to Autumn Journal, where he underlines the mediating value of his poem, “something half-way between the lyric and the didactic poem28”. Such didacticism is clear in the following lines of canto XII: “All that I would like to be is human, having a share / In a civilised, articulate and well-adjusted / Community where the mind is given its due29”, again not distinguishing the role of man and that of poet. The 5th century-B.C. poet in Greece is a model for MacNeice because he is the archetype of Aristotle’s “political man”. But the community of the Greek poet, framed within the polis, is not to be found in MacNeice’s times. A community for MacNeice is human rather than national, the latter being a source of inner conflict and uncertainties. MacNeice questions the possible achievement of Aristotle’s political role for man within his own time and society. The possibility of his own ability to take up such a role is open to debate in Autumn Journal, as James Matthew Wilson explains in his analysis of MacNeice’s use of Aristotelian ethics in the poem: It is by no means an exclusively Aristotelian poem, but it does at least present the Greek philosopher as more than an object of a bankrupt nostalgia for “The Glory that was Greece”. Aristotle’s role in the poem, in fact, is […] a foundational figure for an alternative to philosophical modernity. Late in the poem, MacNeice complains of the recalcitrance of his own modern conscience to accept the Aristotelian political nature of man. The emphasis that conscience places on the individual as “self-supporting” rather than socially constituted, MacNeice calls “Eternal self-abuse30”.

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23 Wilson here refers to canto XVII where MacNeice, in the traditional opposition between Plato and Aristotle he says he inherited from his public-school education31, explores the notions of Alter Ego and the metaphorical representation of man as an organism in its necessary interaction with a community of other men: And Aristotle was right to posit the Alter Ego But wrong to make it only a halfway house: Who could expect – or want – to be spiritually self-supporting, Eternal self-abuse? Why not admit that other people are always Organic to the self, that a monologue Is the death of language and that a single lion Is less himself, or alive, than a dog and another dog32?

24 The needed interaction of man with others is transferred onto the plane of poetry where a monologue is considered to be a sterile mode, while on the contrary the poet is encouraged to be open to dialogue, a notion MacNeice goes back to in Modern Poetry when he states that “A poet should always be ‘collaborating’ with his public33”. MacNeice does indeed stage a dialogue with Greek philosophers, as well as with a larger community of readers, though the nature of this community is difficult to define. It seems that MacNeice wants to address mankind in general, and not a specific national community, be it England or Ireland. He represents the latter in canto XVI in particularly hard stereotypical traits and thus destroys the possibility of a coherent and supportive community in his native country. It seems more natural and easy for MacNeice to forge a dialogue with Greek philosophers than with what he senses is a fake image of Ireland: “It is self-deception of course:/There is no immunity in this island either34”. MacNeice refuses on the one hand to be part of the national community of an Ireland whose values he mostly rejects, while on the other he likewise avoids being assimilated to the poetic generation of the Thirties by, for instance, refusing its political involvement. In the following lines, the conflicting nature at the core of MacNeice’s identity explains the uncertain value attached to community as an unreal form of collective belonging: Such was my country and I thought I was well Out of it, educated and domiciled in England, Though yet her name keeps ringing like a bell In an under-water belfry. Why do we like being Irish? Partly because It gives us a hold on the sentimental English As members of a world that never was35.

25 The creativity of man’s collective role versus the sterility of his self-contained individual ego is redefined by MacNeice not only through the idea of community, which remains problematic, but thanks to Aristotle’s definition of the essence of man through action. Using again the form of a debate with the expression “Aristotle was right”, MacNeice continues in canto XVII his dialogue with the Greek philosopher to define the role of man: Aristotle was right to think of man-in-action As the essential and really existent man And man means men in action; try and confine your Self to yourself if you can36.

26 MacNeice here extends his first perception of the role of man as political man, that is to say within a community, to the need for collective action. The essence and existence of

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man depends on the one hand on his ability to interact with others but also on his constant activity. Just as the present can only be perceived through the motion of the actual, man only really exists when in action, in a state of actualization close to energeia. For him, man’s essential being is actualized only in action, that is to say when he is creating something out of himself, or moved into action by an outside force. The constant interaction of man with other people seems to be an extrapolation on Aristotle’s notion of organic unity (“other people are always organic to the self”), which MacNeice transfers here onto a community of people, where the acting and the acted upon, agent and patient, are merged. Aristotle defines potential action thus: In a sense the potency of acting is one with that of being acted on; in a sense it is different. The one is in the patient (it is because even the matter is a motive principle that things can be acted on, different things by different things); the other is in the agent. Thus so far as a thing is an organic unity it cannot be acted on by itself, for it contains no distinction of agent and patient37.

27 The merging of agent and patient in the actualization of the potential is also what is at stake in the representation of man-in-action in the dramatic form according to Aristotle. Indeed, in chapter 6 of the Poetics, Aristotle defines the characteristics of tragedy according to the staging of the essence of man through the placing of his action in the foreground: Since tragedy is mimesis of an action, and the action is conducted by agents who should have certain qualities in both character and thought38. […] because tragedy is mimesis not of persons but of action and life; and happiness and unhappiness consist in action, and the goal is a certain kind of action, not a qualitative state39.

28 Man exists and is represented only through action and his ability to act, and action takes centre stage while the agent himself remains in the background. Man’s essential characteristics come to life only through action since drama is, according to Aristotle, the representation of action, and this is what MacNeice aims at achieving in Autumn Journal.

Conclusion

29 Throughout the cantos, writing the present is linked to the notion of performance, where motion and action actualize the essence of the real and of man. Thanks to Aristotelian concepts, MacNeice elaborates a staging of the present tense on a temporal and visual plane where an in-depth historical perspective is an inert frame, not a meaningful scale. In Autumn Journal, the contemporary is a vertical representation of time as process, based on the motion of energeia, where the actual is the present as it is performed. Even if the recording of the actual can be deemed too transitory, it questions the intrinsic nature of the real and the role of the poet, qua intellectual, within his society and time. Freezing the present moment in the perpetual motion and repetition of energeia elaborates a temporality where poetry, in its own actuality, stages the actual as the real.

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NOTES

1. Collected Poems of Louis MacNeice, E. R. Dodds (ed.), London, Faber, 1979, p. 125-26. 2. Ibid., p. 126. 3. Louis MacNeice, The Strings are False: An Unfinished Biography, London, Faber, 1965, p. 145. 4. Ibid., p. 145-46. 5. Louis MacNeice, Collected Poems, p. 101. 6. Louis MacNeice, The Strings are False, p. 125-126. 7. Louis MacNeice, Collected Poems, p. 106. 8. Ibid., p. 124. 9. Ibid., p. 116. 10. Ibid., p. 120. 11. Aristotle, Metaphysics, a revised text with introduction and commentary by W. D. Ross, vol. 2, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1924, K. 8. 1065b 5-32, p. 325. 12. Louis MacNeice, Collected Poems, p. 141-42. 13. Aristotle, Metaphysics, Θ. 2. 1046b 30, p. 245. 14. Ibid., p. 243. 15. Louis MacNeice, Collected Poems, p. 126. 16. Introduction to Louis MacNeice and his influence, Kathleen Devine and Alan J. Peacock (eds.), Gerrards Cross, Colin Smythe, 1998, p. 10. 17. Selected Literary Criticism of Louis MacNeice, Alan Heuser (ed.), Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1987, p. 211. 18. Louis MacNeice, The Strings are False, p. 109. 19. Ibid., p. 118-119. 20. Louis MacNeice, Collected Poems, p. 124. 21. Ibid., p. 101. 22. Ibid., p. 128. 23. Ibid., p. 131. 24. Ibid., p. 120. 25. Ibid., p. 108. 26. Ibid., p. 109. 27. Louis MacNeice, Modern Poetry, A Personal Essay, 2nd ed., Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1968, p. 1-2. 28. Louis MacNeice, Collected Poems, p. 101. 29. Ibid., p. 125. 30. James Matthew Wilson, “Louis MacNeice’s Struggle with Aristotelian Ethics”, New Hibernia Review 10:4, p. 65. 31. “The stress laid upon Ancient Philosophy in our course repeated the pattern of our social position as public-school boys; we spent a great deal of time pitting Aristotle

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against Plato but had not adequate foil to the school of idealism which both represent.” (Louis MacNeice, The Strings are False, p. 125.) 32. Louis MacNeice, Collected Poems, p. 135. 33. Louis MacNeice, Modern Poetry, p. 196. 34. Louis MacNeice, Collected Poems, op. cit., p. 133. 35. Ibid., p. 132. 36. Ibid., p. 136.

F0 37. Aristotle, Metaphysics, 51 . 1. 1046a 19, p. 240. 38. Aristotle, Poetics, edited and translated by Stephen Halliwell, new ed., Cambridge, Mass. , Harvard University Press, 1995, chapter 6, 49b 36, p. 49. 39. Ibid., chapter 6, 50a 15, p. 51.

ABSTRACTS

Drawing extensively on Aristotle’s Metaphysics and Poetics, this article argues that Louis MacNeice’s training in classical literature and philosophy may have helped him to devise an original theory of time, one in which the present is not posited as mediating between the past and the future, but has a value of its own, deriving from Aristotle’s concept of energeia as motion. Refuting some of the criticism that has been levelled at Autumn Journal and Autumn Sequel, his two long poems, this article also distinguishes between literature as “actuality” and literature as mere “reportage”, and shows that for MacNeice, the need for action in times of crisis, did not preclude the necessity to reconsider the role of the poet as man-of-action. The intellectual positioning that this reconsideration entails brings to light MacNeice’s simultaneous rejection of nationalism and communism as the only alternative left to man on the eve of World War II.

À partir d’une relecture serrée de la Métaphysique et de la Poétique d’Aristote, cet article entend démontrer que les études de Louis MacNeice dans le domaine de la littérature et de la philosophie de l’Antiquité lui ont sans doute permis d’élaborer une conception du temps originale, dans laquelle le présent n’est pas un simple point de relais entre le passé et le futur, mais a une valeur intrinsèque, qui s’inspire du concept aristotélicien d’energeia comme mouvement. Prenant le contre-pied de certaines critiques qui ont été formulées au sujet de Autumn Journal et Autumn Sequel, les deux poèmes longs de MacNeice, cet article établit également une distinction entre une vision de la littérature comme « actualisation » et une vision de la littérature comme simple « reportage ». Ceci montre que pour MacNeice, la nécessité d’agir dans des moments de crise historique, ne doit pas détourner d’une réflexion sur la fonction du poète comme homme d’action. Le positionnement intellectuel induit par cette réflexion met en lumière certaines des raisons qui ont conduit MacNeice à rejeter le nationalisme et le communisme comme la seule alternative s’offrant à l’individu au seuil de la Seconde Guerre mondiale.

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INDEX

Keywords: Aristotle, writer as critic, social role of the artist, intellectuals, MacNeice Louis, philosophy Mots-clés: Aristote, écrivain comme critique, rôle social de l'artiste, intellectuels, MacNeice Louis, philosophie

AUTHOR

MÉLANIE WHITE Université de Metz

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Emblems of his early adversity : Conor Cruise O’Brien and France

Diarmuid Whelan

1 Perhaps Stefan Collini wasn’t looking over his shoulder in Absent Minds when he challenged the notion that “intellectuals begin at Calais1”, but in many ways there is no better riposte to the charge than O’Brien. It is fair to say that however much one might contest his arguments or dismiss his prophecies, O’Brien was the embodiment of a man animated by ideas and set in motion by words. Ultimately he wrote himself into the national dialogue with his vivid unearthing of the link between mentality and action. He himself seemed to be a challenge to the Irish stereotype, with his non-native accent and cool rationalism allied to a steely rigour. This of course was nowhere near the truth. He was a man given in equal measure to thirst, mirth, and volubility. In the end he was utterly absorbed by his own emotions (as many a fall-out with once fast friends testified), his own personal preoccupations, and his peculiar familial tragedy. It was this sense of family, of what his clan, the Sheehys, “should have been” (leaders of a Home Rule Ireland), of how low they fell (shabby genteel ethos amidst furniture repossessions), that came to have a resonance beyond his own life. O’Brien’s contribution was to take his unique personal fable and translate it into a national morality tale with lasting political relevance.

2 O’Brien’s importance may be gauged by the obituaries from December 2008 which referred to O’Brien’s passing as “the closing of a chapter in history2”. “Ireland’s restless conscience” was gone, and with it Ireland “lost its greatest 20th-century public intellectual3”. Even a far from uncritical observer remarked that while he was the author of “just two competent stage plays, Conor Cruise O’Brien was the most important public man of letters Ireland witnessed since W. B. Yeats died in 19394”. Possibly the view that best captures both his stature and mode was Brian Fallon’s in the Guardian : “probably the most pugnacious Irish intellectual since George Bernard Shaw5.” More caustic voices from the past captured his ability to inspire and befuddle. One critic commented after his entry into national politics in 1969 that he was viewed as the “golden calf of the Irish left.” The same writer suggested that his exalted position “would be less disturbing if [the left] did not simultaneously try to portray him

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as its Moses6”. Throughout his varied career this capacity to inspire and enrage was O’Brien’s hallmark – whether it was his first appearance on the national political stage at a Labour Party conference in 1938 when he was howled down for his criticisms of General Franco, or his vilification in the English press at the time of his recall from Katanga in the Congo in 1961. Subsequently he became an established figure in post- colonial debates in the UK, and anti-Vietnam protests in New York. But it was with his return to Ireland in the late 1960s, his election as a Labour Party TD and elevation to his position as Minister for Posts and Telegraphs in 1973 that he truly divided opinions. In that era he became the scourge of the Provisional IRA and the censor not just of journalists but of the nation’s history. His defeat in the 1977 election removed him from the political arena proper but in no way did it silence him7. If anything his interventions became more vociferous, to the point that he was described by one Fianna Fáil minister as “an intellectual terrorist8”.

O’Brien and all things French

3 And yet over time Ireland’s own view of its history, its nationalism, and ultimately its associations with Britain and Northern Ireland, all rowed in behind O’Brien’s original points. We can begin to substantiate such a lofty claim by returning to O’Brien’s inner musings and to look at the role all things French had in the formation of these. The depth of this is hinted at in Playing the Harlot, a roman-a-clef by the late writer Patricia Avis about her life and relationships with a string of notable lovers (including Richard Murphy and Philip Larkin). In it she penned a barely disguised portrait of O’Brien whom she had a brief affair with in the mid-1950s. She gives the O’Brien character a disfigured arm and makes him a Scotsman, but in all other details the portrayal is vividly accurate. O’Brien comes across as a memorable and driven character who studied through his evenings and holidays, was ruthless in his diplomatic position and ran up large debts. In terms of his worldview there is a clear indication of his patriotic fervour which would be correct for the O’Brien of that era (fresh from his anti-partition propaganda activities), but also of a desire to bypass England and go straight to France for its political and intellectual direction : “He talked about freedom like a Frenchman, about justice, order and anarchy, and just occasionally, about Scotland, which he would, she suspected like to see attached (in a highly liberal fashion) to France, if anywhere9.”

4 This strong affinity for France wasn’t simply a reflexive anti-Englishness, but a Francophile streak which had been in his family background for the previous two generations. His grandfather the MP David Sheehy and his grand-uncle the ‘Land League priest’ Eugene Sheehy were both educated in France and Belgium. O’Brien’s mother Kathleen Sheehy and her other sisters, most notably Hanna Sheehy Skeffington, had all lived and studied in Amiens. The Amiens link was again taken up in the next generation, both by O’Brien’s cousin Owen Sheehy Skeffington, who married into the recipient family, and O’Brien himself, who spent several summers there. It was the beginning of a lifelong passion for French culture and the French language. Both his wives referred to his fondness for holding forth in French and interspersing his talk with his “Gallicisms” or “Conor’s French noises”. Even though I have made the point elsewhere that Irish figures strongly in his upbringing and intellectual formation, there is no doubt that he was both emotionally and intellectually immersed in French10. Even

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in the immediate aftermath of his mother’s death he recalls the day after her passing : “sleeping on the camp-bed […] trying to read Brunetière, crying myself to sleep11.” Another example shows he was keeping abreast of French military reversals : “The Germans are in Boulogne today […] this is awkward as it will probably prevent me getting the Dirb edition of the works of Proust. I ordered them from Paris three weeks ago12.”

5 While in college he visited France twice before the Second World War broke out and two vignettes from those trips give an idea of the young Francophone O’Brien. In a diary by a friend of his, Flann Campbell, O’Brien is entered in the “Dramatis Personae” of their voyage across France as “The Dark One”. While this intriguing sobriquet suggests a whiff of sulphur, there is no ambiguity about O’Brien’s brains. He is described simply as “the scintillating intellectual of our party.” He is also “an entertaining talker, slight cynic and a good looker.” On a practical level O’Brien “speaks excellent French (he would almost pass for a native) and does most of the bargaining for us.” On a separate visit to France O’Brien “eloped” with his girlfriend of the time (and future wife) Christine Foster. His future father-in-law tracked the couple down to the town of Port- de-Piles and came over here after us to see that I didn’t offer her any violence. On hearing that my intentions were honourable he fell on my neck and got soused and invited the mayor (Socialiste) the instituteur (SFIO) and Christine (Fabian Soc) and me (FAI) to dinner. A splendid demonstration of working class solidarity ! I had a terrible argument with Mr. Foster whether Baudelaire was a greater man than Jesus Christ and why the O’Briens burnt Derry in 1033. He is going home to-day. Thank Baudelaire13.

6 O’Brien’s memorable insouciance continued when he returned to Trinity. As chair of the Modern Languages Society his inaugural address was on the obscure topic of “Après Port-de-Piles Quoi ?” The tongue in cheek address was delivered to the small audience of friends who knew the personal circumstances behind the title. Nevertheless it is one of the first, if obscure, examples of a lifelong tradition of sparking various intellectual flints off his personal milestones. It is the first stirring of what would become his signature technique of auto-history, O’Brien’s pattern of enmeshing some meaty matter of politics or history with his own biography. The style that informs his work on Yeats’s fascism (with its anecdotes about his father in Yeats’s company), States of Ireland, and his Irish history from the 1990s Ancestral Voices all began somewhere between a soirée in provincial France and that November night in Trinity.

7 In addition to O’Brien’s fondness for inserting himself into his prose he can also claim consistency in a determination to be seen as a writer. To write professionally was a clear childhood objective, and whatever the subject matter or the flux in his views over the years, the thread of writing was always there. From a very early age there seems to have been a happy mix between a physical compulsion and something like an almost spiritual urge to write : it is there in his mother’s letters describing her four year old tapping away at the typewriter and it is there also in his college diary with its almost exalted mumbling that “it is good to write words with a pen.” From the same diary we can tell he has a keen desire to become a professional writer. However, after having his poetry rebuffed by Seán O’Faoláin – “killed by Cork realists” as he memorably put it – he endeavoured to make his way in the world through the various avenues of journalism, literary criticism, and history. Remarkably he attempted all three endeavours simultaneously, at the cost, it seems in retrospect, of his marriage. In

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offering a reason for their marital break-up, his first wife remarked that “Conor was always writing”, adding, rather magnanimously, that “Conor was incapable of writing a bad sentence14”.

8 O’Brien’s journalistic endeavours span his entire writing career. Even in his final years when his judgement had deserted him, he insisted on a desire to continue writing up to his death. He began his career in his third year in college when he wrote weekly columns for the Irish Times describing the various happenings in Trinity. Within a few years his first published pieces appeared in The Bell as examinations of various other media titles like The Irish Independent and The Catholic Standard. Throughout his life journalism kept the finances flowing and served as an outlet for his attempts to get his political points across in memorable debates with other intellectuals, or simply to try and persuade the reading public of the merits or demerits of a particular course of action. In this he was highly effective. Yet it is the other two avenues of expression, history and literary criticism and his debt to Camus and Michelet that are perhaps both more problematic and also more rewarding in terms of understanding O’Brien.

Camus and Michelet

9 O’Brien’s unusual historical approach owes a great deal to the influence on him of the French historian, Jules Michelet. In “Michelet Today”, an extended article written in the mid 1950s, O’Brien juxtaposes the arguments of “history-as-science” against what he feels to be the higher worth of “history-as-art15”. For O’Brien, the root of Michelet’s greatness was that he felt passionately about history. What distinguishes him is that he said clearly and openly what he felt. O’Brien contrasts this with the case of “some Buster Keatons of historiography who can attain genuine and total impassivity : they record the facts and nothing more. Yet what facts, and why record them ? How select the facts if you care nothing about them, one way or another ?” O’Brien then sketches the scenario, an increasingly familiar one nowadays, of a fallacious separation which is accepted by historians. This is where the “opinions hot and strong, go into newspaper articles, radio, television; the serious historical writing is tightly buttoned, ostentatiously unemotional.” For O’Brien, to accept this belies any grasp of human psychology. To reasonably expect historians to manage this is to believe in “fabulous creatures”. In truth, what “history-as-science” historians rebuke in Michelet is his unguarded expression of prejudice and emotion, which O’Brien thinks we should be grateful for, as it puts us on our guard. In a line that O’Brien would adopt as his own, Michelet tells us precisely where he would have stood, beside whom he would have sat, and where he would have fallen on all the great issues of the day16.

10 For this reason Michelet is, in O’Brien’s view, an inherently honest historian. Yet he goes on to say that to call Michelet “an honest historian would be only a play on words unless he is also found honest in relation to the facts, unless he consistently relates events which do not suit his thesis17”. At this point O’Brien makes a distinction between Michelet as historian of the Revolution, and Michelet as historian of the general events outside the Revolution. In the former, he is “remarkably honest, because he is anxious to be just to all parties, is acutely concerned and even torn by their disputes18”. In the case of the latter, he clearly fails, because for Michelet “international relations is hardly more historical than a Punch-and-Judy show”. For O’Brien, Michelet’s critics have however insisted on this aspect too much. Surely he should be considered on the

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basis of the bulk of his work. In writing as he did Michelet ignored the point of view of the enemies of the Revolution because he was too busy trying to understand the revolutionaries’ concerns and psychology. When viewed on this basis alone, Michelet manages to be just and skilful to all parties. By way of riposte, O’Brien taxes the scientific historians with themselves being prone to the very same emotionalism. O’Brien points to one critic who found Michelet’s attitude to Robespierre and his cohorts “positively repulsive”, who could not comprehend Michelet’s “sentimentality about the bloody maniacs.” Another example relates to those historians who blame Michelet for “‘helping to form the intellectual background of French communism’” This, as O’Brien neatly points out, is one of those unscientific lapses into “judgements from the standpoint of today19”.

11 Ultimately, O’Brien contrasts the two types of history. “History-as-science” is seen as a “sedative, leading to the resignations of agnosticism”. “History-as-art on the contrary is a stimulant, enriching and embittering contemporary conflicts20”. The explanation of Michelet’s passionate involvement is to be located in the simple cultural difference between the French view (seeing their historians as themselves involved in the historic process), and the Anglo-Saxon or Nordic critic who sniffs at such emotionalism. The conundrum for O’Brien is that : In practice the man who believes himself to be prepared to modify his opinions in accordance with the evidence cannot help interpreting the evidence in accordance with his opinions. If he is scrupulous the dilemma will paralyse him21.

12 If we return to “Michelet Today” what is subliminally at odds with the Anglo-Saxon / Nordic view could easily be interpreted as not just the French tradition of l’histoire engagée but also an equivalent Irish historical tradition. The Irish view of history-as-art with its connection to the long Irish struggle with the English and its own tradition of l’histoire engagé from the seventeenth century to the present would receive unexpected validation. O’Brien no doubt would repudiate the essay in later years because of where it would put him in the Irish historical debate : alongside other historians whom he viewed as validating and inciting what he called “tribal self-righteousness and ethnocentric arrogance”. This aside, what remains is an enthralling view of one brilliant historian being re-interpreted by an aspiring one. O’Brien in the late 1950s disdains prophecy, and yet even then sees Michelet’s prophecies more as healthy curses. He would later become synonymous with repeated warnings of civil war in Ireland. In another nod to his future incarnation O’Brien evinces an et alors ? attitude toward polemics. For him the cost of vented spleen outweighs the non-defense of the values under attack. And yet most of O’Brien’s fascination and the approbation is reserved for Michelet’s honesty surrounding the Revolution itself. In conveying the dynamism of the flux and the fury of the French Revolution, we can see O’Brien’s enthusiastic endorsement of what he would try to achieve himself in many later historical works.

13 What light does O’Brien’s work on Michelet shed on his own writings ? The answer depends on what we choose to see as O’Brien’s French Revolution. O’Brien’s writings should be evaluated in the light of a particular section of Irish nationalism over the past hundred years. To run the rule over his own evaluation of Michelet, we could say that in O’Brien’s portrayal of the Irish nationalist tradition, he certainly found something which stimulated his interest, and which he pursued relentlessly. In his identification with this tradition he for a time defended it well, and gave those of other traditions pause to think. While it can be said that O’Brien was brilliant and fully

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engaged, he certainly took sides. While it would never be fair to accuse O’Brien of chauvinism, can it be said that he never resorted to the level of Punch and Judy shows ? His moral polarisation of the various parties in the 1970s and after certainly has hints of this. Finally, it would be hard to say that O’Brien’s participation as a practising politician or as an exponent of l’histoire engagé honed his judgement. Sadly he ceased conveying the confusion of history as it happened and the nuance disappeared. The varied interactions, the mutability of the characters and questions, the richness of the issues and opinions – all those fine qualities exemplified by Michelet – atrophied to a single explanation : religion; a lone culprit : the Catholic Irish; a sole judgement : wrong; and one future : doom.

14 To turn to O’Brien’s other outlet – his literary criticism – the novelty again lies in his political interest crossing over traditional boundaries. Garrett FitzGerald once tried to sum up O’Brien’s role by suggesting an interesting dualism. O’Brien, he felt, was “more of a literary intellectual than a political philosopher. However, he suggested that it was O’Brien’s uniqueness to be a political philosopher in Ireland when all our intellectuals are literary ones22”. This interesting tension is compounded by O’Brien’s own proclivities. As much as he studied languages and literature in college, and as much as he was consciously building a career for himself as a literary critic, the pull of politics was always stronger for him. This might lead some to suggest that he got his literary criticism wrong. However, another view would be that it made it increasingly potent. One classic example of this is the charge behind his essay Passion and Cunning that Yeats had fascist sympathies. Another less heralded example is an earlier attempt to do an equivalent of the Nuremberg trials in his first book Maria Cross – a collection of essays on the imaginative patterns in a group of Modern Catholic writers. Ultimately this literary/political crossover compulsion within O’Brien is exemplified in his treatment of Camus. In his writings on Camus, O’Brien cuts to the political centre at the heart of Camus’s output. Yet in doing so he abstracts from Camus a viewpoint which he would apply to Ireland’s relationship with ‘the Troubles’. Ultimately O’Brien’s take on Camus translates into a genuine intellectual contribution for an entire society.

15 We can begin to uncover this by looking at a frank admission by O’Brien of Camus’s importance to him. The real significance, and the source of the appeal, of the work of this period (the forties) is not one of revolt but one of affirmation. To a generation which saw no reason for hope it offered hope without reason. It offered a category the absurd – in which logical, psychological, philosophical, and even social and political difficulties could be encapsulated and it allowed the joy of being alive, in the presence of death, to emerge. It was neither a revolutionary message, nor a specially moral one; but it was a singularly sweet and exhilarating message to a whole generation who were also pleased to think of itself as revolutionary and moral. I belonged to that generation and if I scrutinise that message now with the wary eyes of middle age, I am no less grateful for having received it in my youth23.

16 From the frankness and honesty of it, we can say that Camus had a profound effect upon O’Brien both intellectually and emotionally. We can also note that O’Brien’s primary concern was for a considerable time bound up with somehow trying to be both “revolutionary and moral”; a proper compass one might suggest for an intellectual, if an ill-fitting one for an academic and less still for a civil servant. The best place to understand O’Brien’s view of Camus is O’Brien’s 1970 monograph Camus. This book, which has been described by several commentators as O’Brien’s best, is an overview of Camus’s oeuvre and life. It is written very much with the colonial perspective in mind

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and continually interrogates the output of Camus against the background of his birthplace, Algeria. The book itself has three stages, corresponding to the years surrounding each of Camus’s best known works – L’Étranger, La Peste, and La Chute.

17 Initially O’Brien’s opinion of L’Etranger was not that high. The main reason for the negative judgement arises from the colonial perspective which O’Brien employed to evaluate Camus. To put it simply, O’Brien felt that Camus’s representation of Algeria was untruthful. The greatest fiction in L’Étranger was the idea that a jury of his peers would convict Meursault of murdering a native Algerian (“It implicitly denies the colonial reality and sustains the colonial fiction24.”) The second chapter on Camus, The Plague, deals with La Peste, which for O’Brien is an allegorical sermon on reactions to Nazism. O’Brien sees a flaw in the novel in that Camus fails to recognise that Nazism is also a form of colonialism. For O’Brien, the irony is that although the action takes place in Oran in Algeria, the Arab population and an appreciation of the French treatment of Algerians is entirely absent. O’Brien points out that Camus never included the native Algerians in his fiction. Although the Arab quarters are mentioned, they are never visited and play no role in the story. O’Brien surmises that this oversight encapsulates Camus’s attitude to the colonial predicament : Eight years after the publication of La Peste the rats came up to die in the cities of Algeria, with the eruption of the boils and pus that had been working inwardly in the society, and this eruption came precisely from the quarter where the doctor, and by implication Camus, never looked. The source of the plague is what we pretend is not there and the preacher himself is already, without knowing it, infected by the plague25.

18 According to O’Brien, in the immediate years after the Second World War Camus was “the most brilliant and influential figure on the non-communist left in France.” Through his works he had come to represent a figure of Godless holiness, and to be seen by some as the archetype of the “just man”. O’Brien’s interest lies in taking a contrary vein to the lionised view of Camus. He begins by pointing out that Camus had initially been highly sceptical of forms of anti-communism, a view O’Brien shared. As the war grew more distant, Camus increasingly focused his attention on the threat of violence to the state and society. His reaction to this began to take an expressly anti- communist form. As O’Brien says, he “grows to forget26” his distrust of political anti- communism. Against the backdrop of the beginnings of the Cold War, revelations of Stalinist practices, and a blurring of the truth on behalf of both communist and anti- communist camps, Camus came to the viewpoint that “lies and violence have their home with communism because it is legitimised by a philosophy of history27”. This was to be expanded upon in his essay L’Homme Revolté.

19 The publication in 1951 of L’Homme Revolté, with its formulation that “violence and lies have their home in Communism28”, led to the famous split between Sartre and Camus. However, this split was to magnify with their diverging responses to crises in Indo- China, Suez, Hungary, and ultimately the Algerian war. In these situations, the implications of Camus’s estrangement from the left can be seen. Sartre’s position was that Frenchmen who hated terror and oppression – the “lies and violence” that were obsessing Camus – should turn their attention first to their own war : Indo-China and after the French capitulation at Dien Bien Phu, Algeria. It is this question of priority, psychological as well as political, that came to press most heavily on Camus. Innocuous as it may sound, it is only when viewed in the light of the actual situations that this choice of priority came to be paralysing :

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Camus’s position in the fifties was one of extreme intellectual and emotional difficulty and tension. He had written about freedom, justice, violence, and revolt in abstract terms and asserted principles which he presented as both of fundamental importance and universal application. He never altogether abandoned this language and he continued to write about politics in the tones of a severe moralist. Yet his actual positions were political and partisan. The violence of the Hungarian rebels and of the Anglo-French expedition in Egypt raised no problems. It was ‘violence on the right side’ : precisely the logic he rejected on the grounds of a rigorous morality, in relation to revolutionary violence. Freedom was an absolute for the Hungarians and their violence in asserting their will ‘to stand upright’ was ‘pure’. The violence of the Algerian Arabs, who thought that they were making the same claim, was ‘inexcusable’ and the nature and degree of the freedom to be accorded to them was a matter to be decided by France, in the light of its own strategic needs – a plea which was irrelevant when made by Russia29.

20 For O’Brien, Camus tacitly supported the repression in Algeria “since he consistently opposed negotiation with the actual leaders of the rebellion, the F.L.N.” Camus maintained that negotiation with the F.L.N. would lead to “the independence of Algeria controlled by the most implacable military leaders of the insurrection; that is to say, the eviction of 1,200,000 Europeans of Algeria, and the humiliation of millions of Frenchmen, with the risks involved in that humiliation30”. What was needed was the suppression of the F.L.N., and after this process of ‘pacification’, a period of ‘Free association’ would follow. Camus foresaw that this required French military victory over the insurgents. For O’Brien, Camus remained in fact a Frenchman of Algeria and what seemed to be the increasingly right-wing positions of his later years were latent in his earlier silences. The only public statement of Camus on the subject of the Algerian war which has the ring of complete candour is one that he made in Sweden in December 1957 just after he had received the Nobel Prize : “I have always condemned terror. I must also condemn a terrorism which operates blindly, in the streets of Algeria for example, and which one day may strike my mother or my family. I believe in justice but I will defend my mother before justice31.”

21 With his final novel, La Chute, Camus seems to grow apart from the left-wing intellectuals and the aspirations they once shared. The universals which infused his language are set aside for what O’Brien describes as a “more conservative, more organic” view of life32. In the anti-hero Clamence, Camus produces an artistic response to his own political quandary. He manages in a way to close the circle with his estranged relationship with Algeria in a manner that is personally compelling for O’Brien’s own political quandary. Camus “faces his dilemma between mother and justice with unmatched imaginative integrity33”. Camus’s defection was “a defeat for an entire generation”, and a political move that led many to “feel horror at the moral capital of La Peste supporting Algerian repression34”. Yet as O’Brien points out “it was in the very personal circumstances of Camus’s life that this choice had to be made. And although Sartre’s choice in defending the Algerian cause, involved the risk of his life, Camus’s choice was the harder for it involved his entire life’s moral, emotional, and intellectual capital35”.

22 What, it might be asked, has this to do with O’Brien ? First of all we can see clear similarities. A persistent trait of O’Brien’s which derives from his reading of the Sartre and Camus controversy is the question of priorities : that intellectuals must look to their own area of responsibility before condemning others. This question of “priority” is one strong influence on O’Brien but Camus’s example goes deeper. Many might be

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tempted to see O’Brien’s own much criticised “conversion”, or decision to criticise the history and society of the Republic, as similar to Camus’s choice of mother before justice. A persuasive case can be made that O’Brien chose his particular form of political inheritance instead of the universals which tripped off his tongue in the 1960s. And yet there are problems with the validity of the parallel36. Northern Ireland is not Algeria. The analogy could possibly hold in the Anglo-Irish war period, when it was a case of two historic entities, and a process of decolonisation. However, in 1970s Ireland, with three governments, two of these at varying stages in the process of decolonisation, and with different claims being put forward, it is a little harder to see an analogy with the Algerian colony’s fight for independence. Even if we allow the parallel, O’Brien’s relation with Northern Ireland is not similar to Camus’s with Algeria. For O’Brien to claim the mantle of Camus – interestingly a thing he never did – he would have had to be a London based Northern Protestant.

23 If O’Brien’s writings up to 1970 were to be examined, taking into account his role as anti-partition propagandist and anti-colonialist, his choice of mother would lead to one of active support for the nationalists in Northern Ireland (he was approached in 1969 to run for the seat which Bernadette Devlin ultimately won). However, there is an equally valid but alternative reading of the choice of mother. This suggests that if O’Brien chose the familial over the universal, like Camus, there are strains within O’Brien’s intellectual inheritance that he needed to choose between. O’Brien carries conflicting arguments within himself, which are almost antithetical. In his particular case we can make an argument that O’Brien’s task was to choose between “mother” and “father”. I would argue that he ultimately chose “father”. This implied a more selective assessment of his past, with a conscious privileging of his father Francis Cruise O’Brien’s agnostic and cosmopolitan traits over the Catholic and nationalist Sheehy part on his mother’s side. Viewed in this light, the crucible of a choice again underlines the importance of personal histories to O’Brien. To return to the situation itself, we can see that O’Brien’s initial reaction was to actively support the nationalists in Northern Ireland. To see why O’Brien took the road he did, we need to go beyond this mother- justice choice. We need to look at what Camus said in L’Homme Revolté. By doing so we can, if nothing else, understand what is meant by justice.

24 O’Brien’s first review of L’Homme Revolté shows that he had mixed feelings about the book37. Years later in his 1970 monograph on Camus, he came to accord it far more weight. Even still there is a certain distrust of it as it is explicitly anti-communist. Nonetheless, it can be shown that L’Homme Revolté is the bed-rock upon which O’Brien’s subsequent critiques of the IRA and of Irish history are founded. It is significant that while he was working on Camus, the violence in the North was beginning to escalate. It was also at this time that he co-wrote A Concise History of Ireland, while also keeping notes which would appear in States of Ireland. Writing about L’Homme Revolté in 1970 O’Brien refers again to the view that came to obsess Camus in the Cold War period : “the idea that violence and lies have in some special sense their home among the communists because they are legitimised by a philosophy of history38.” O’Brien goes on to say that the central argument of the very long first part of L’Homme Revolté resembles that of Yeats’s short poem, The Great Day : Hurrah for Revolution and more Cannon-shot ! A beggar upon horseback lashes a beggar on foot. Hurrah for revolution and cannon come again ! The beggars have changed places, but the lash goes on39.

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25 O’Brien commented : Camus unlike Yeats, approves the revolt of the beggar on foot. What Camus rejects is the continuation of the lash, and more especially the justification of the lash in terms of the philosophy of history, the superman, or the dictatorship of the proletariat40.

26 Now in Ireland there has not been much scope for the superman, or the dictatorship of the proletariat. There has, however, been a philosophy, or interpretation, of history which has given rise to many an action. It would seem that this philosophy, and O’Brien’s interpretation of it, would constitute the motif of all his later writings.

27 This becomes particularly clear when we read that L’Homme Revolté questions the notion of “violence legitimised by the ethos of past revolution41”. Furthermore the text of L’Homme Revolté is replete with examples of the language which O’Brien would later introduce to an Irish audience. In borrowing the language, he swapped republicanism for communism and translated the violence and lies legitimised by a philosophy of history into a specifically Irish context. Evidently O’Brien saw an Irish parallel with the themes in L’Homme Revolté, and distilled and mapped them onto Ireland. Arguably, the entire inspiration and content of O’Brien’s later writings on Irish history, indeed his rationale for criticising republican violence, can be seen to derive from the concerns of Camus in L’Homme Revolté. The ethos of past revolution, the philosophy of history, the specific language and accusations about violence and lies deriving from past precedent, however well they fit, however apposite they may now sound to Ireland in the wake of O’Brien’s critique from the 1970s, all initially came from Camus and especially L’Homme Revolté.

28 At present there is some awareness of the influence of Camus in O’Brien’s development, although this still revolves around one reading, which is the mother-justice choice42. As stated, the parallel between Ireland and Algeria is unsatisfactory. It belongs to an earlier period of Irish history, and would look better above the head of Shaw or Yeats, if it is to be anyway analogous to Camus’s relation to Algeria. Moreover, to force a choice between mother and justice is to entirely miss the O’Brien critique. It is only when the repercussions of violence in the North are felt in the South, after events such as the Arms Trial, that O’Brien chooses. But it must be pointed out that his critique is for the Republic in terms of audience, and for the Republic in terms of defending it from illegitimate contestants like the Provisional IRA. What does O’Brien do in 1970 and after ? However sceptically some may view it, he, adapting Burke, loves his “own platoon” : his family, friends, neighbours, his compatriots, the Republic. In short he, like Camus, chose “mother”.

29 We might also ask : what is justice in an Irish context ? Does O’Brien supposedly dispense with it ? Certainly most of the universals which infuse his writings of the 1960s, and especially the collection Writers and Politics, are jettisoned. The view which he comes to accept is the “more organic, more conservative” one of Camus, which can later be seen in O’Brien’s fondness for Burke. Yet when Camus wrote about justice in L’Homme Revolté in 1951 he was not addressing colonialism or Algeria, he was addressing communism. The text of L’Homme Revolté, which is an enquiry into what legitimised the Nazis and Stalin – philosophical murder – is riddled with the word justice. The important thing to note here is that this is exactly what O’Brien concerns himself with from 1970 on. Justice and the philosophy of history are, according to Camus and as interpreted by O’Brien, incompatible. By locating the philosophy of

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history in the tradition of Tone, the Fenians, Pearse and the IRA, by squaring up to the ethos of violence legitimised by past revolution, and by using the language of L’Homme Revolté in all subsequent writings on Ireland, O’Brien is explicitly and consciously choosing justice. Viewed from this angle one could without any irony say that O’Brien chose mother and justice.

30 While O’Brien might consciously or otherwise have adopted Camus’s critique and to an extent tried to borrow his mantle of the just man (before being exasperated with the opprobrium it brought him and threw it away with some well timed detonations in 1970s Ireland), they are very different writers. Despite O’Brien’s attempt to base his critique on Camus, there are significant differences in their manner of conceiving the world. While Camus is described as “hardly a philosopher at all”, he shows that he is not only conversant with all the philosophers of his time and before, but that he is acutely interested in the intellectual capital behind the events. He may view things historically, but it is only to provide a scheme for his probing of the thoughts that concern him. O’Brien on the other hand is profoundly historical. While interested in the notions in people’s heads, the results of this probing are used to inform his historical conception. Possibly the most basic difference between the two intellectuals is simply that of originality. Camus is an artist, O’Brien is a critic. Camus conjures up provocative solutions, while portraying people and problems which pervade and endure. While he may reach his metaphysical position of hope through intelligence, the inspiration which guides it, and the aspirations contained within, rely on a rare perception informed by pure intuition. O’Brien, who is no less intelligent, gets nowhere similar. There is exhortation but it rings hollow. The positions of eminent worth are derived from others. The tone is of prohibitive ethics, the scope is limited, its substance negative.

Conclusion

31 This is not a criticism. Readers can determine for themselves the value of O’Brien’s oeuvre. They may make their own decision regarding its provenance, and according to their own tastes judge its originality. They should not, however, have doubts as to its effectiveness. If the limited scope does not make for art or permanence, it found its audience. The ethical stance was necessary when the civic notions of the public were being appealed to over the more attractive allure of sentiment and history. The negativity arose naturally out of the context, and perhaps also from the innate pessimism of O’Brien. Ultimately it is the fuel of that pessimism, a particularly personal tragedy that a true portrayal of O’Brien must return to.

32 While the rancour of some engagements in the public domain still lingers, there is no doubt as to the importance of his “activities” in the long term. An obituary of O’Brien in the Irish Times saluted his overall achievement with the view that while his political career “looms largest in recent Irish memory, his critical, cultural and historical activities form part of a lasting legacy43”. But in bringing the three threads of his life’s activity together it is important to bear in mind the caveat about O’Brien which I mentioned at the beginning, which is the presence of the personal in the writings of this intellectual. So much of his perspective was governed by the early family influences which shaped him irrevocably. In this case there is no doubt but that the child became father to the man. As one critic put it his perceptions were enhanced

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because “he understood Ireland’s ‘ancestral voices’ intimately44”. This was the source of the strength of O’Brien’s insights. His best books, Parnell and his Party, States of Ireland, some would argue The Great Melody, but above all Camus, are so powerful precisely because he applies to them the lesson that his own life taught him – we cannot escape what we have come from. Whether it was drinking deep from the intellectual wells of his youth, penetrating into the true social reality behind Camus, or “enriching and embittering contemporary conflicts” with “history-as-art”, it was his life’s irony that the intellectual and his ‘matter’, the hunter and his quarry, would live cheek by jowl.

NOTES

1. Stefan Collini, Absent minds- Intellectuals in Britain, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006. 2. Jenny McCartney, “Farewell to Ireland’s Restless Conscience”, The Telegraph, 20 December 2008. 3. Frank Callanan, Sunday Independent, 21 December 2008. 4. W. J. McCormack, “Conor Cruise O’Brien : Irish intellectual with a long career as journalist, politician, literary critic and public servant”. The Independent, 20 December 2008.

5. Brian Fallon, “Conor Cruise O’Brien”, The Guardian, 19 December 2008. 6. D. R. O’Connor Lysaght, The Lace Curtain : A Magazine of Poetry and Criticism (1969), p. 61. 7. Admittedly he went on to serve in the Seanad. However he resigned his seat after two years in which time he made practically no contribution.

8. Brian Lenihan (Snr.), The Irish Times, 11 October 1991. 9. Patricia Avis, Playing the Harlot (London, Virago, 1996), p. 176. 10. See author’s Conor Cruise O’Brien : Violent Notions (Dublin, 2009), esp. “Mother”, p. 31-46. 11. O’Brien’s College Diary. Entry for May 24 1940. O’Brien Papers UCD, P82/328/48. 12. Ibid. 13. O’Brien to Owen Sheehy Skeffington, late July 1938. Sheehy Skeffington Papers, National Library of Ireland, MS 40,489/4. 14. Author’s interview with Mrs. Christine Hetherington (née Foster), Dublin, 20 January 2003. 15. Conor Cruise O’Brien, “Michelet Today”, in Writers and Politics, London, Chatto, 1965, p.42. 16. “A thing I always had in mind approaching it [history] was ‘What would you have done chum ? – what side would I have been on ?’”. Magill April 1986. Quoted in Fintan O’Toole, “Profile of Conor Cruise O’Brien : the Making of a Liberal”, Magill, April 1986.

17. O’Brien, “Michelet Today”, p. 49. 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid. 20. Ibid., p. 57. 21. Ibid., p. 56. 22. Author’s interview with Dr Garrett FitzGerald, Ranelagh, Dublin, 12 November 2003. 23. O’Brien, Camus (London, Fontana, 1970), p. 29.

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24. Ibid., p. 23. 25. Ibid., p. 51. 26. Ibid., p. 54. 27. Ibid., p. 53. 28. Ibid. 29. Ibid., p. 75. 30. Ibid., p. 74. 31. Ibid., p. 75. 32. Ibid., p. 83. 33. Ibid.,p. 85. 34. Ibid. 35. Ibid. 36. He himself rejected the parallel twice. See his Letter to Irish Press, 18 May 1970 and also hid essay “Violence in Ireland : Another Algeria ?”, New York Review of Books, 17.4 (23rd Sep. 1971). See also the draft of “The People have risen”, in O’Brien papers UCD P82/ 259(4).

37. O’Brien, “Monsieur Camus changes his climate”, Writers and Politics, pp. 65-71. 38. O’Brien, Camus, p. 53. 39. Ibid., p. 51. 40. Ibid., p. 55. 41. Ibid., p. 54. 42. See Declan Kiberd’s discussion of Camus and Cruise O’Brien in Inventing Ireland, London, Cape, 1995, p. 558-560; Terence Browne, Ireland : A Social and Cultural history 1922-2002, London, HarperCollins, 2004, p. 272-275. 43. Irish Times, obituary of O’Brien, 19 December 2008. 44. Jenny McCartney, “Farewell to Ireland’s Restless Conscience”, The Telegraph, 20 December 2008.

ABSTRACTS

In this article, the author wishes to outline some of the key ideas employed in the writings of Conor Cruise O’Brien, perhaps the preeminent intellectual of post-war Ireland. Rather than look at the broad range of his career, she investigates several influences upon O’Brien arising from his connections with France. In particular she attempts to scope out the strong French links into which he was born, while also looking at two key influences upon his mind : Camus and Michelet. Both left a strong impression on the manner O’Brien approached his task as public intellectual in Ireland in the 1960s up to his death in December 2008.

L’auteur souhaite cerner quelques-unes des idées majeures employées dans les écrits de Conor Cruise O’Brien, sans doute la figure intellectuelle la plus marquante de l’après-guerre en Irlande. Plutôt que d’embrasser l’ensemble de sa carrière, cet article examine plusieurs influences subies par O’Brien en raison de ses liens avec la France, et revient notamment sur l’atmosphère

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familiale imprégnée de francophilie dans laquelle O’Brien est né, ainsi que sur deux auteurs qui eurent une fonction déterminante dans sa formation intellectuelle : Camus et Michelet. Tous deux ont laissé une empreinte profonde sur la façon dont O’Brien, depuis les années 1960 jusqu’à sa mort en 2008, a toujours envisagé son rôle d’intellectuel public en Irlande.

INDEX

Mots-clés: O'Brien Conor Cruise, intellectuels, relations franco-irlandaises Keywords: intellectuals, Franco-Irish relations, O'Brien Conor Cruise

AUTHOR

DIARMUID WHELAN University College, Cork

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From Visionary to Functionary: Representations of Irish intellectuals in the debate on “Europe”

Katy Hayward

Introduction

1 The defeat of Ireland’s first referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon in June 2008 presaged by a few months the global cataclysm that sent ruinous tremors through the country’s economic, political, and social bedrock. This crisis turned Ireland’s remarkable entrenchment in the globalised system on its head, simultaneously revealing both the dangers and the necessity of supranational cooperation. The very fact of the second referendum on the same treaty some sixteen months later served as a cold reminder to the Irish electorate that membership of the European Union remains an imbalanced affair: Ireland’s need for the EU will always exceed its influence upon it. The result of Lisbon I may be understood in part as Irish voters taking the rare opportunity to counter this inequity in one grand gesture, but the national circumstances of the Lisbon II referendum once again brought realism to the fore. This tension between pragmatism and idealism is worth uncovering here precisely because it has become apparent in Irish debates about “Europe” only relatively recently. Until around the turn of this century, Ireland’s EU membership was successfully presented as fortuitously both essential and beneficial. In this article, I argue that the debate on EEC accession in Ireland originally enabled intellectual contributions to combine “visionary” concepts of the ideal “Europe” with the “functionary” requirements of joining ; in fact, the idealised notions of integration served in some ways to obfuscate in the public mind the actualities of EEC membership.

2 This mixing of “functionary” and “visionary” was particular evident in – and facilitated by – intellectual discourses originating from the dominant conceptual frameworks for

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national political development and debate at the time of Irish accession to the EEC, namely Catholicism and nationalism. In this sense, after Bourdieu and Eisenstadt, we are considering here the representation of intellectuals in the (re)production of Irish cultural and social values as they participate in the symbolic and institutional frameworks of the nation1. Beyond this, are questions of how intellectuals therefore served to legitimise both the state and the state’s seceding of sovereignty – reinterpreting tradition at the same time as appearing to reinforce it.

3 The intellectual construction of the Irish nation-state was certainly integral to the imagining of “European Community” in Ireland. Indeed, mainstream political and intellectual discourses presented European integration in terms of the fulfilment of Irish nationalism2. However, the “visionary” thinking about European integration by Irish intellectuals, so crucial to shaping enthusiasm and support for EU membership in the second half of the twentieth century, had all but disappeared by the first referendum on the Treaty of Nice in 20013. Instead, intellectuals play an increasingly “functionary” role in debates about “Europe”, in effect supporting the official position of the Irish government without being given much scope for critiquing or elaborating upon it. This shift from “visionary” to “functionary” represents a conglomeration of trends that have together reduced the space for intellectualising European integration in Ireland.

4 In intellectual analyses in the twentieth century, Fanning summarises, “Europe was viewed as a positive political influence on Ireland, a chance for economic and social uplift4”. But this generally warm approach to integration – aided by the intellectual analyses considered at a later point in this article – was not based on detailed, practical or imaginative consideration of its purpose. Ireland was entering a great unknown when it joined the European Economic Community ; indeed, the Irish Minister for European Affairs, Dick Roche, has gone so far as to say that the Irish people and government “had no idea what we were getting into” at the point of accession5. Such an “inability to think through the full implications of EEC/EU membership” has continued to feature in Irish political and intellectual discourses on the subject6. Patrick O’Mahony and Gerard Delanty argue that this “reveals a society still intoxicated by anticipation rather than sobered by reality7”. But what makes this “anticipation” quite so engaging and, on occasion, fickle (as the results of the first referendums on the Treaties of Nice and Lisbon imply) is the fact that it is not based on any firm vision of the potential future of Ireland in Europe. The anticipation held by the Irish people – and sustained by intellectual contributions – for European integration is essentially determined by ideal notions of the Irish nation-state. Maurice Goldring has depicted Irish intellectuals as patriots, in love “with an illusionary country and tradition, with an image, with a representation” ; what else, he asks rhetorically, “can one be in love with?8” Ireland’s “vision” of Europe has been but a hazy reflection of this chimera. European integration was (until recent times) presented by the majority of Irish intellectuals as a patriotic venture in the belief that EEC/EU membership offered the framework for the realisation of Irish national ambitions.

5 Thus, European integration has not been a topic of consistent fascination among Ireland’s intellectuals because the predominant obsession has been with the nation – its needs, its interests, its identity – and European integration has by and large been discussed in conjunction with this rather than as a supranational project itself. In this article, I will show that contributions from Irish intellectuals in the debate on “Europe”

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have effectively correlated with the dominant (intellectual and political) discourses about the Irish nation-state. Maurice Goldring’s insightful description of “personalised intellectualism” in Ireland, whereby contributions to national debates tend to be recalled and assessed in terms of key personalities9, is certainly true in relation to the representation of intellectuals in this area. Notwithstanding this, Irish intellectuals have traditionally contributed to public debate about nation-statehood and European integration from within the framework of two tropes integral to mainstream political power and thought in Ireland at the time of accession, these being Catholicism and nationalism. This article considers the representation of intellectuals vis-à-vis the debate about European integration, specifically the “visions” of “Europe” they conjured and how these related to the “function” of supporting EU membership.

Representations of intellectuals in support of integration

Catholic conceptions of “Europe”

6 At the time of the creation of the Common Market and, a little later, Ireland’s first application to EEC membership in 1961, ecclesiastical influence still weighed heavily in policy-making and public discourse. Intellectual contributions to matters of political, economic and social importance largely centred on the precepts of the Catholic Church (even if they were in opposition to them) and were often made by those speaking from within it, including the numerous professors in the National University of Ireland who were ordained Catholic priests10. Bryan Fanning’s study of intellectual journals explores the debates that “shaped modern Ireland”, most prominent among which (particularly in the mid-twentieth century) are the journals which reflected a form of Catholic social conscience11. These included Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review of Letters, Philosophy and Science (founded in 1912), which is published by Jesuits but includes contributors from lay intellectuals (from Patrick Pearse to Garret FitzGerald) as well as clergy, and Christus Rex: An Irish Quarterly Journal of Sociology (1947-1970), which reflected the presence of priests in the humanities and social sciences in Irish universities12.

7 Interest in European integration among Irish intellectuals writing in these journals was present even prior to Ireland’s application. This concern was grounded in a sense of the magnitude of the “moment of decision” faced by European countries in the wake of the Second World War, finding themselves “between two new world poles, and […] subject to the influence and interests of both13”. Speaking in the broadest terms, the Catholic Church did not wish to see Europe become swayed by the influence of either Marxism or American capitalism. Thus, Irish intellectuals writing from a Catholic perspective welcomed the creation of the embryonic European Defence Community in 1952 as enabling nothing less than the survival of “Europe”: [T]he Catholic can remember that what we know to-day as Europe is largely the creation of the Catholic Church… For the Catholic the proposal of a United Europe is, so to say, only putting the clock back… That a Catholic should welcome closer collaboration between European countries and should look with understanding and sympathy upon a properly balanced attempt to recreate unity in Europe is reasonably to be expected14.

8 The above extract from an article by Fr. John Murray on “this growing sense of Europe” embodies the direct connection made between the creation of the European

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Community and “those ideas and values which have made Europe what Europe was and is,” i.e. the moral code and remit of the Catholic Church15. Traditional arguments for European integration made by intellectuals within the cultural apparatus of the Church presented it in terms of a civilising project, the redemption of Europe, the rediscovery of a “social and spiritual heritage16”. This notion was slowly developed and expanded over the 1950s and 1960s – particularly in relation to the concept of European integration as a bulwark against Russian Communism. A fine example of this discourse is a speech given by the Bishop of Clonfert, William J. Philbin, soon after Ireland’s first application for EEC membership, which is worth quoting at length: What is coming to pass has in fact been written about in terms of the Messianic Age… A prototype of what is looked for is found not in the European homogeneity once enforced by Roman arms but in the unity of spirit that was later established among the same peoples by the Christian concept of universal brotherhood. It is believed that the Articles of Association of the E.E.C. were christened as the Treaty of Rome with a view to conveying this implication. In the latter centuries the West has fallen away widely from many of its characterizing beliefs, but its communities have still kept a lowest common measure of faith in their consciousness that the roots of their culture, their elements of cohesion and their chief differences from those who seek to destroy them are grounded in spiritual things. In such thinking we find the deepest moral content of what is happening today in Western Europe17.

9 The notion of a return to a simple Christian civilisation in Europe was particularly attractive because it conjured up myths about Ireland’s own role in the Dark Ages. This argument was not confined to those speaking on behalf of the Church but was present even in the discourses of high-ranking Irish civil servants, who argued for example that the Irish people “can fairly claim to be foundation members of that post-Roman civilisation which has evolved into the Europe of to-day […]. We played our fair part in the Christianising and civilising of the barbarian hordes, whose posterity was destined to mould the European heritage into its present context and form18”.

10 This type of “visionary” discourse from intellectual leaders served to reassure the Irish Catholic populace that the creation of a united Europe was both a necessity and an opportunity. Grandiose reflections on the future of this embryonic European community were most present in Irish Catholic intellectual discourse (as depicted in journals such as Studies) in the early period of Ireland’s application and accession to the EEC19. After this time, apart from a flurry of interest around the creation of European Union in 1989-1992 and the prospect of enlargement in 200420, “Europe” became little more than a familiar backcloth to set-pieces on the nation-state (its economy, its neutrality, its identity, etc.)21. In general intellectual contributions to the public debate about “Europe” from an overtly Catholic perspective declined in significance after the 1960s, not only due to the wider changes occurring in Irish society at that time but also because Irish thinkers and voters sought more from European integration than the rediscovery of a mythical past.

Nationalist conceptions of “Europe”

11 Richard Kearney describes Hyde’s Gaelic League as a movement to “repossess Ireland’s dispossessed culture”, and it is apparent that many Irish intellectuals who supported accession to the EEC did so for similar reasons22. In a pamphlet setting out the “cultural aspects” of Ireland’s EEC accession, Tarlach Ó Raifeartaigh, the first Chairman of the Higher Education Authority, refers to Douglas Hyde’s arguments for Gaelicisation and

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draws parallels with his own argument for integration with Europe23. The most pressing concerns for Irish nationalist intellectuals for much of the twentieth century were continued dependence on Great Britain, the poor state of the Irish economy, the unsettled existence of Northern Ireland, and the erosion of the integrity of Irish culture. On a “practical” level, accession to the EEC appeared to offer the opportunity to correct the first two of these threats. Some intellectuals then connected the “idealising” of European integration to the other two matters. For example, Garret FitzGerald’s book Towards a New Ireland predicted that “such influence as membership of the Community will have is likely to be uniformly directed towards easing that path to a united Ireland24”. One way in which this could happen, it was suggested, would be that a heightened appreciation of the points of commonality among those on the island of Ireland would occur through the experience of being in the EEC: “by joining Europe and facing Europe together we might create that sense of unity at home25”.

12 This (Irish and European) unity was made all the more urgent by the growing sense that “there is a danger of our being somewhat swamped by the all-pervasive Anglo- American culture”, and the argument made was that “the more we can reorient ourselves towards Continental influences the more chance we have of resisting Anglo- Americanism26”. European integration thus came to be presented by many as a benign alternative to “our own way of life […] being greyed out against the background of the mighty mid-Atlantic civilisation27”. Other elements of the case made by nationalist intellectuals for European integration arguing that it offers the chance to preserve the integrity of Irish native culture include: the opportunity to “end provincialism and insularity” ; the means to escape “being in various ways at the mercy of our nearest neighbour” ; the claim that “a united Ireland could find a better background than is available at present” ; intriguingly, the expectation that “close contact with Continental peoples must add to our intellectual stock” ; and, in sum, the chance to no longer appear “as that charming but sometimes troublesome little country28”. Given the urgency and greatness of the threat to Irish culture, Ó Raifeartaigh warns, “if we fail to join hands with the Continent… we face eventual total assimilation29”. He concludes by drawing together the pragmatic and idealistic elements of the nationalist case for accession: Within [the EEC] we could legitimately combine affection for our own Country with a feeling for the wider heritage in which we also share – and at the same time enjoy the bonus of a partial escape from the present economic and cultural near- monopoly which holds us in its whim30.

Representations of intellectuals critical of European integration

13 In order to get a rounder picture of representations of intellectuals in the debate on “Europe” in Ireland, it is necessary to consider those who speak from a critical position. Many critics of European integration ground their resistance in left-wing political ideals. This is unsurprising given that socialism has been an oppositional and minority position for Irish political actors. The peripheral position of socialist thought in the official conceptualisation of European integration was exacerbated by the fact that the left-wing experienced a deep split on the matter of EEC membership immediately after accession. Left-wing intellectual advocacy of European integration in Ireland has an indomitable lead character in the form of the Labour Party’s Michael D. Higgins, whose

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contributions to the “European” debate are among the most innovative and reflective on the pro-European side, combining support for integration because of what it could become31 with a willingness to critique the EU because of its failure to move consistently towards that goal32. Outside the Labour Party, most socialist public thinkers in Ireland have written, spoken and acted in opposition to the development of the EU. It is important to note that very few critics from across the political spectrum would describe themselves as forthrightly opposed to European integration as such ; instead they condemn aspects of the European Union as it is currently conceived and developed whilst reserving the possibility that it might yet be altered to become less objectionable.

14 Some critics of European integration chose to speak from a determinedly independent position, as did Liam de Paor and John De Courcy Ireland. Other academic critics have taken prominent stances in public campaigning in opposition to European treaties (and the dominance of pro-integrationism in Ireland), for example Raymond Crotty, Roy Johnston, Roger Garland and Anthony Coughlan33. It is possible to contend that the “anti-establishment” and even “personalised” nature of such activism became far more prominent than the original rationale behind individuals’ participation. Today, objections to European integration from intellectual and academic critics often arise as a result of their wariness of globalisation. For example, Peadar Kirby’s critique of the Celtic Tiger incorporates a wariness of the economic model underpinned by the EU34, and Andy Storey’s criticism of the “neoliberalism” of the EU is tied with his leading role in a non-governmental organisation for global justice35.

15 There has also always been an enduring element of conservativism in criticism of European integration. For example, prior to accession Bord na Móna chairman, Aodogan O’Rahilly, expressed concerns that, that “if we were going to enter the EEC then our sovereignty would be lost and in a free trade environment we would quickly go under36”. O’Rahilly described his views in retrospect as being those of “an old style Fianna Fáil nationalist” – a comment which reveals quite how significantly Irish official nationalism had changed by the 1960s37. Other dominant forms of ideology have also changed and been redefined in Ireland, so much so that some of the early arguments made by some intellectuals in support of European integration have since become the preserve of those objecting to it. Desmond Fennell, for example, echoes the type of conservative Catholic cosmopolitanism expressed by Catholic intellectuals in the early days of Ireland’s integration into the European Community (see above) but he has a contrastingly negative interpretation of the nature and future of the “postwestern” condition38. Notably, Fennell considers himself unusual among Irish intellectuals for being concerned, and free to write, about subjects beyond that of Ireland and the Irish39. His outlook might be idiosyncratic compared to mainstream Irish intellectualism, but in many ways he is still speaking to it. What this very brief sketch confirms is that the conception of Irish nation-statehood is at the heart of the debate even in critical approaches to European integration: whether this nation-state be a Celtic Tiger over-dependent on the market economy (as according to Kirby), a government over-enthused with EU sovereignty-sharing (as according to Coughlan) or a populace over-whelmed by the “soft totalitarianism” of western governance (as according to Fennell).

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Constraints on the representation of intellectuals in current debates

Technicalism and pragmatism

16 In making the argument that the growing influence of technicalism has inhibited intellectual imagination in the conceptualisation of European integration, I am not belittling the great role the Irish public service has and continues to play in innovation and knowledge in Irish culture and governance. Indeed, many of Ireland’s most notable public intellectuals in the twentieth century emanated from the public service, including Conor Cruise O’Brien, Valentin Iremonger, Brian Ó Nualláin [Flann O’Brien, Myles na gCopaleen], and T. K. Whitaker40. Academics and policy-makers who attempt to marry intellectual critiques with the technical and bureaucratic dimensions of governing and modernising the nation-state have long been facilitated in doing so by the Institute of Public Administration’s journal Administration (founded 1953). It is to be expected that experts and thinkers would write quite differently within this framework than in some other media for politically-relevant opinions. For example, the first Director of the Institute of Public Administration, Tom Barrington, presented a paper to officials of the European Commission in 1974 describing the Irish “realistic and pragmatic enthusiasm towards the European Community41”. Rather than the mix of “functionary” and “visionary” that I have outlined above, Barrington explains this pro- Europeanism as being a consequence of an education system that “discouraged the speculative and reinforced the natural bent towards the practical, the unintellectual, the non-speculative”. He described Irish pragmatism as involving “a short-term view of change, where it was necessary, [leading] to a number of ad hoc solutions”, the aggregate of which “seemed to result in fragmentation and incomprehensibility42”. Such anti-intellectualism, this high-ranking civil servant warned, may well produce eagerness in response to European integration but it would not prepare the path for the long course of Ireland’s EU membership.

17 Brigid Laffan and Jane O’Mahony’s analysis of responses to European integration in the Irish administration – which they show to be often informal, agenda-driven and conceived on an ad hoc basis – might imply that Barrington’s critique was fairly perceptive43. Yet arguably this is not so much a sign of nascent anti-intellectualism in Ireland but rather because there are sound and significant reasons for such Irish pragmatism. As O’Mahony and Delanty put it, the manner in which the Irish became ‘good Europeans’ and have continued to embrace successive evolutions of European Union highlights the need for a small semi- peripheral state to belong within a larger context44.

18 Secondly, Barrington failed to anticipate the ability of the Irish political and intellectual elite to merge a euro-in-the-hand pragmatism with high-fluting ideals – expediency and idealism are not necessarily incompatible. Indeed, the official reasoning behind accession to the EEC, i.e. fulfilment of Irish sovereignty, implies that there is simply no need for tension between normative and practical interests, indeed, that the two are conjoined. Thus, the Irish political elite, supported by public intellectuals, have keenly avoided presenting any tension between a Europe of equality and one of prosperity. Former Taoiseach, Garret FitzGerald, described the greatest challenge for the EU as being “how the Community can provide not merely a

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framework for the economic development of our Continent, but also a cultural and moral dimension that will enlarge the horizons of the parallel national and regional cultures45”.

Media: friend and foe

19 Among the most notable changes for Irish intellectual and political thought in the twentieth century was the shift from church to state in the 1960s as the major institutional arena for intellectual activity, as identified by Liam O’Dowd46. O’Dowd also presciently noted that the trend Debray explored in his study of modern French intellectuals47 was also becoming evident in late twentieth-century Ireland, with the media’s replacement of both church and state as the dominant cultural apparatus48. What have been the consequences of this process, which was hastened and cemented by economic transformation in Ireland? In Celtic Tiger Ireland, conventional intellectual paradigms (particularly from left-wing or Catholic quarters) became less visible and less welcome in the mainstream media. The representation of the intellectual in the public arena has become that of “commentator”, “pundit” or, if the individual has academic credentials, “expert”. The norm for intellectual contributions to political debate in the mainstream media is in a broadcast panel discussion or, at best, a brief opinion piece in a newspaper. With a few noble exceptions, contemporary scholarly publications do not seek to bring intellectual critiques and debates about contemporary society to a wide, cross-disciplinary readership. In fact, the few spaces for lively discussion of grand ideas about Irish nationalism, and occasionally European integration, are now mainly to be found on the internet49. Nevertheless, it is noticeable that many online discussions about these subjects are in response to opinion pieces in established publications, such as Fintan O’Toole writing in the Irish Times, and even the most adventurous writers appear to reserve their most considered ideas and insights for publishing in printed texts. The development of new media for communicating ideas has not been the only change to affect the role of public intellectuals in Ireland.

Specialisation and categorisation

20 Zygmunt Bauman warned of the perils posed by the professionalisation and specialisation of intellectuals for the integrity of intellectualism and for its duty towards enhancing public knowledge50. Such problems are becoming evident in the representation of intellectuals in the contemporary debate about European integration in Ireland. The assortment of commentators and experts who are willing to speak publicly on “Europe” in Ireland is fairly slim and the scope for their analysis is confined. Individuals with the knowledge and capacity to debate the subject of EU integration rarelyo get the opportunity to do so in a public realm, and when they do it is invariably in the context of a referendum on an EU treaty (either forthcoming or failed – there is little discussion after ratification). At such times, all broadcast contributions to the debate are categorised as being on one side or another. This is in part a consequence of the judgements of the Supreme Court in the cases of McKenna (1995) and Coughlan (2000) which ruled that referendum campaigns on EU treaties could not be funded by public monies, that a Referendum Commission would present the ‘neutral’ position and information about the treaty contents, and that “Yes” and

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“No” positions in referendum campaigns would have to be given equal time and fair presentation in the national media.

21 As a consequence, there is no room for ambiguity or nuance, and certainly not for what Posner describes as intellectuals’ crucial “respect for the complexity of problems51”. Specialised intellectuals invited to speak on European integration are increasingly categorised as speaking either a “Yes” or “No” position. Among the effects of this, it is noticeable that EU lawyers are gaining more prominence in public debates (answering questions about the contents and effects of treaty articles rather than the reason for their inclusion) and that Irish social scientists with expertise on the EU are having to “pin their colours to the mast” if they even want to contribute to public knowledge of the subject. The subsequent representation of academics contributing to the national discussion about European integration is not one of a public intellectual in either the universal or specific sense, but one of a campaigner. This is a stark example of what Bourdieu laments as the current form of public intellectual work, namely “public position-taking”, and it is one that any scholar who seeks to contribute to the “Europe” debate in Ireland is forced to take52.

Conclusion

22 By way of conclusion, I wish to summarise core points made above and then consider their implications for the representations of intellectuals in debates on and beyond European integration in Ireland. First, the preoccupation with national identity and nation-building among the Irish intelligentsia identified by O’Dowd is clearly evident in the contributions made by Irish intellectuals to the debate about “Europe53”. Arguments made by intellectuals both in support and in criticism of European integration have ultimately centred on the process of imagining and constructing the Irish nation-state. Precisely because of this national crux, there has been a trend of turning a necessity into a virtue in pro-integrationist arguments. There has therefore always been a “functionary” element to most intellectual contributions on Ireland’s relationship with the EU. However, this article has argued that in recent times this tendency has come to subjugate the “visionary” nature of intellectual contributions on the subject of European integration. This has occurred partly through the shrinking public “space” available to intellectuals, the increasing emphasis on “specialisation” and expertise, and the push for academics to be identified as “Yes” or “No” supporters in their contributions to the debate on “Europe”. In such ways, the current context for discussing European integration in Ireland exemplifies the challenges faced by intellectuals seeking to contribute to public debate across contemporary political sphere.

23 The current “crisis” in Ireland’s relationship with the EU reveals some of the dangers of confining intellectual imagination when it holds such importance for public conception and engagement with a powerful political entity. If Ireland’s intellectual forebears depended on grandiose, idealised notions “Europe” in order to foster Irish enthusiasm for EEC membership, we have reached a critical point in needing them to be recovered and revived for the modern challenges of this age. It is possible to speculate that the decline of imagination about European integration is correlated with the similar downward trend in nationalist imagination itself – economism may be said to be the grand narrative to have replaced nationalism in the twenty-first century. Yet the

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results of the referendums on the Nice and Lisbon treaties are evidence that this technical, economistic, media-led discourse is insufficient to inspire a demos willing to support further European integration. An analysis of Irish public opinion about European integration shows still a lingering fondness for Europe but one that is not accompanied by much intense interest in it. Ireland’s embracing of Europe has been an essentially a narcissistic affair, and it has been no less gratifying for that. But intellectuals need not concentrate on reshaping Irish nationalism in order to fit with European integration. Richard Kearney’s analyses of “Europe”, which are regrettably beyond the remit of this paper to dissect, are quite so engaging because he acknowledges that the continent is one of “metamorphosis”, that it is subject to change, and that it is as Janus-faced as its nationalist foil54. Perhaps it is now possible to begin to reimagine “Europe” in line with the realities of global, as well as national, circumstance. Ireland’s experience of EU membership would suggest that the “visionary” elements of intellectual conceptions of European integration are as essential as the “functionary” ones55.

NOTES

1. P. Bourdieu and J.-C. Passeron, Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture, trans. R. Nice, London, Sage, 1990 (1977) ; S. N., Eisenstadt, “Intellectuals and Tradition”, Daedalus, vol. 101, n° 2, 1972, p. 1. 2. K. Hayward, Irish Nationalism and European Integration: The official redefinition of the island of Ireland, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2009. 3. The first Irish referendum to ratify the Treaty of Nice was rejected by 53.9 percent of voters, on a turnout of 34.8 percent, in June 2001 (it was passed in a second referendum the following year). The first referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon, held in June 2008, was rejected by 53.4 per cent (on a turnout of 53.1 percent). At the time of writing, the second referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon was to be held on 2 October 2009. 4. B. Fanning, The Quest for Modern Ireland: The battle of ideas 1912-1986, Dublin, Irish Academic Press, 2008, p. 7. 5. D. Roche, “Ireland and the future of the EU”, speech given at the re-launch of the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence in European Studies, Queen’s University Belfast, 23 February 2009. 6. P. O’Mahony, P. G. and Delanty, Rethinking Irish History: Nationalism, Identity and Ideology, Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1998, p. 175. 7. Ibid. 8. M. Goldring, Pleasant the Scholar’s Life: Irish intellectuals and the construction of the nation-state, London, Serif, 1993, p. 175. 9. M. Goldring, Faith of our Fathers: A study of Irish nationalism, Dublin, Repsol, 1987. 10. T. Garvin, Preventing the Future. Why was Ireland so poor for so long? Dublin, Gill and Macmillan, 2005.

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11. B. Fanning, op. cit., p. 4. 12. Ibid., p. 1. 13. J. Murray, J., “This Growing Sense of Europe”, Studies, vol. 41, n° 163-4, 1952, p. 268. 14. Ibid., p. 273 (emphasis added). 15. Ibid., p. 280. 16. Ibid. 17. W. J. Philbin, “The Irish and the New Europe”, text of an address delivered by the Bishop of Clonfert to the Catholic Workers’ College, Dublin, January 1962, published in Studies, vol. 51, n° 21, p. 27-43 (emphases added). 18. T. F. Ó Raifeartaigh, Ireland and the EEC: The Cultural Aspects, Dublin, Irish Council of the European Movement, 1972, p. 6. 19. For example, see J. Murray, “The Spread of the Idea of Europe”, Studies, vol. 47, n° 188, 1958, p. 410-420 ; G. FitzGerald, “Political Implications of Irish Membership of the EEC”, Studies, vol. 51, n° 201, 1962, p. 44-81. 20. For example, see G. Wylie, “The Future of the European Union. What, how and why?”, Studies, vol. 91, n° 362, 2002, p. 125-133. 21. For example, see G. Quinn, “Ireland and the European Monetary System”, Studies, vol. 67, n° 268, 1978, p. 265-275 ; S. Murphy, “The New Europe and Irish Neutrality”, Studies, vol. 79, n° 316, 1990, p. 377-386. 22. R. Kearney, The Irish Mind: Exploring Intellectual Traditions, Dublin, Wolfhound Press, 1984, p. 8. 23. T. F. Ó Raifeartaigh, T. F., op cit. 24. G. FitzGerald, Towards a New Ireland (1972), Dublin, Torc Books, 1973. 25. G. FitzGerald, “The Common Market”, Irish Times, 5 January 1963. 26. Ibid. 27. T. F. Ó Raifeartaigh, op. cit., p. 13. 28. Ibid., p. 6-13. 29. Ibid., p. 4. 30. Ibid., p. 13. 31. For an example of this “visionary” thinking, see Michael D. Higgins’ description of the Lisbon Treaty as, “an opportunity, a platform from which new policies and thinking, which recognise our global interdependency, our intergenerational responsibility and our ethical obligations to each other, can evolve”. See Europe and the World: The European Union and the Lisbon Reform Treaty, article on Labour Party website, July 2009: [www.labour.ie/lisbonreformtreaty/policy/europeandtheworld.html] (accessed August 2009). 32. For an example of his criticism of particular aspects of the EU’s evolution, see M. D. Higgins, “Drifting Towards an Homogenized Future”, Aisling Magazine, n°27, August 2000: [www.aislingmagazine.com/aislingmagazine/articles/TAM27/Drifting.html] (accessed August 2009). 33. For more on intellectual opposition to EEC membership see A. Devenney, “‘A Unique and Unparalleled Surrender of Sovereignty’: Early Opposition to European

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Integration in Ireland, 1961-72”, New Hibernia Review, vol. 12, n° 4, winter 2008, pp. 15-32. 34. P. Kirby, L. Gibbons and M. Cronin (eds.) Reinventing Ireland: Culture, Society and the Global Economy, London, Pluto, 2002. 35. A. Storey, “The European Project: Dismantling the social model, globalising neoliberalism”, The Irish Review, vol. 34, pp. 20-33. 36. Aodogan O’Rahilly – interview conducted by Gary Murphy and cited in G. Murphy, “Towards the Corporate State: Seán Lemass and the realignment of interest groups in the policy process, 1948-1964”, Administration, vol. 47, n° 1, 1999, p. 100. 37. Ibid. 38. D. Fennell, The Postwestern Condition: Between chaos and civilisation, London, Minerva Press, 1999 ; Ireland after the End of Western Civilisation, Belfast, Athol Books, 2009. 39. D. Fennell, About Behaving Normally in Abnormal Circumstances, Belfast, Athol Books, 2007. 40. T. Garvin, “Imaginary Cassandra?: Conor Cruise O’Brien as Public Intellectual in Ireland”, Irish University Review: A Journal of Irish Studies, n° 37, September 2007, p. 439. 41. T. J. Barrington quoted in B. Fanning, op. cit., p. 204. 42. Ibid. 43. B. Laffan and J. O’Mahony, Ireland and the European Union. Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. 44. P. O’Mahony, P. and G. Delanty, op. cit., p. 175. 45. G. FitzGerald, “Ireland, Britain, Europe: Beyond Economic and Political Unity”, in J. P. Mackey (ed.), The Cultures of Europe: The Irish Contribution, Belfast, Institute of Irish Studies, Queen’s University Belfast, 1994, p. 185. 46. L. O’Dowd, “Intellectuals in Twentieth Century Ireland and the case of George Russell (Æ)”, Crane Bag, n°9, 1985, pp. 6-25. 47. R. Debray, Teachers, Writers and Celebrities: The Intellectuals of Modern France, trans. D. Macey, London, Verso, 1981. 48. L. O’Dowd, “A Sociological Introduction”, in L. O’Dowd (ed.), On Intellectuals and Intellectual Life in Ireland: International, comparative and historical contexts, Belfast, Royal Irish Academy/Institute of Irish Studies, Queen’s University Belfast, 1996, p. 1, p. 14. 49. The most fruitful sources of such non-party-political intellectual musing are blogs, by groups such as the think tank TASC [www.progressive-economy.ie/] or by individual Irish writers (literary, academic, journalistic or aspiring) such as [www.eire.com], and websites set up by motivated individual thinkers, such as Philip Casey [www.alternativeparty.org] or Ronit Lentin [www.ronitlentin.wordpress.com] (all sites accessed August 2009). 50. Z. Bauman, Life in Fragments: Essays in postmodern morality, Oxford, Blackwell, 1995. 51. R. Posner, Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 2001, p. 3. 52. P. Bourdieu, P., Acts of Resistance: Against the Tyranny of the Market, trans. R. Nice, New York, New Press, 1999. 53. L. O’Dowd, op. cit., p. 8.

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54. R. Kearney, Visions of Europe: Conversations on the legacy and future of Europe, Dublin, Wolfhound Press, 1992, p. 7, p. 11 ; T. Nairn, Faces of Nationalism: Janus revisited, London, Verso, 1997. 55. Acknowledgements. I am very grateful to Liam O’Dowd, Colin D. Shaw, Tom Garvin and John Coakley for engaging and insightful conversations that helped define some of the thinking behind this paper. All errors and misjudgements are entirely attributable to the author.

ABSTRACTS

As Ireland contemplated, and then became part of, the evolving European Community, Irish intellectuals played a central role in debating integration. This article assesses the representations of Irish intellectuals in relation to Ireland’s EEC/EU membership and makes three core arguments. First, it seeks to show that intellectual contributions to the debate about European integration, both positive and negative, have been inseparable from the processes of imagining and constructing the Irish nation-state. Secondly, it argues that the mix of necessity and opportunity in Ireland’s accession to the EEC has meant that there have always been “functionary” as well as “visionary” elements to intellectual contributions on this subject, but now the former has largely subjugated the latter. Finally, the current context for discussing European integration in Ireland exemplifies the challenges faced by intellectuals seeking to contribute to public debate across contemporary political sphere. The premise of this article is that the very requirement of a second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty reveals both the dire need for and the current constraints on intellectual visionary thinking about “Europe” in Ireland and beyond.

Depuis l’époque où l’Irlande envisageait de devenir membre d’une Communauté Européenne en évolution, puis après son adhésion, les intellectuels irlandais ont joué un rôle essentiel dans le débat sur l’intégration. Cet article étudie les représentations de l’adhésion à la CEE/UE véhiculées par les intellectuels irlandais et avance principalement trois arguments principaux. D’abord, il vise à démontrer que les apports, aussi bien positifs que négatifs, des intellectuels au débat sur l’intégration européenne, sont inséparables des processus par lesquels l’État-nation a été imaginé et construit. En second lieu, cet article affirme que le mélange de nécessité et d’opportunisme qui a présidé à l’adhésion de l’Irlande à la CEE se reflète dans les aspects « fonctionnels » aussi bien que les aspects « visionnaires » des contributions des intellectuels sur ce sujet, mais qu’à présent les premiers ont largement pris le pas sur les seconds. Enfin, le contexte actuel dans lequel se déroulent les discussions en Irlande sur l’intégration européenne illustre le défi que doivent relever les intellectuels qui souhaitent apporter une contribution au débat public dans la sphère politique contemporaine. L’un des présupposés de cet article est que la nécessité même d’un second référendum sur le Traité de Lisbonne reflète à la fois le besoin crucial d’intellectuels et les contraintes qui pèsent sur une approche visionnaire de l’Europe, en Irlande comme ailleurs.

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INDEX

Keywords: intellectuals, European Union / EEC, public debate Mots-clés: intellectuels, Union Européenne / CEE, débat public

AUTHOR

KATY HAYWARD Queen’s University, Belfast

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Intellectual Imposters ? – We Should be so Lucky ! Towards an Irish Public Sphere

Eugene O’Brien

1 Early in 1996 the journal Social Text published “Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity”, by Alan Sokal, Professor of Physics at New York University. This article was a fabricated pastiche of contemporary theoretical jargon, which suggested that, among other things, the teaching of science and mathematics should be “purged of its authoritarian and elitist characteristics, and the content of these subjects enriched by incorporating the insights of the feminist, queer, multiculturalist and ecological critiques1”. Sokal later collaborated with Jean Bricmont, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Louvain in Belgium, in a book- length critique of what they termed “postmodern philosophers’ abuse of science”, published in French in 1997, in English a year later. Entitled Intellectual Impostures2, this book contained only a very brief discussion of Lyotard, whole chapters on Lacan, Kristeva, Irigaray, Baudrillard, Deleuze and Guattari, but nothing substantial on Lévi- Strauss or Barthes, Foucault or Derrida. Sokal and Bricmont’s main target was the supposedly widespread notion among English-speaking devotees of French theory that “modern science is nothing more than a ‘myth’, a ‘narration’or a ‘social construction’, among many others3”. By citing these postmodern theorists as intellectual imposters, these writers were making the point that there were correct and, in their view, incorrect ways of commenting on contemporary socio-political and cultural events, and whether one agrees with this or not, what is taken for granted by Sokal and Bricmont is that there is a need to define and analyse the contribution of these intellectual imposters and to demonstrate why they are imposters. The core point seems to be that by transposing the disciplinary and hermeneutical modes from literary analysis to that of science, these intellectuals are imposters as their level of knowledge is not commensurate with the disciplines involved. It is an attempt to regulate the contributions of intellectuals within the French public sphere, and to analyse the role of the intellectual therein.

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2 A parallel exercise which attempted to analyse the role of the intellectual in the Irish public sphere would require either a very powerful microscope or a great deal of imagination. Indeed, to look for the Irish public sphere itself would require a similar exercise in micro-imaging-technology and imagination. Granted, Ireland has produced scholars who from time to time comment across different areas of activity such as Joe Lee or Declan Kiberd, but by and large, there is not a broad tradition of intellectual input into the broader social or cultural sphere. If we define an intellectual as one who writes outside of his or her chosen discipline, and who, by transposing paradigms of a specific discipline, acts as a type of public commentator on social and cultural mores, then Ireland is, and has been, in the grip of an intellectual recession as dire and difficult as the current fiscal recession for quite some time. The investment of intellectual capital outside of disciplinary areas is very much absent from Irish discourse. Indeed the existence of an Irish public sphere is itself open to question. There are, it is true, a number of Summer Schools such as the Magill or Merriman Schools, but even the seasonal title of these makes the point that the Irish public sphere is not a year-round phenomenon. If we look at contemporary cultural debate, the Irish public sphere is a barren place indeed. Where is the intellectual debate around the Ryan Report on clerical abuse, or on the current credit crisis, its causes and ramifications for the capitalist system as we know it, or the status of republicanism in Ireland now that there is peace in Northern Ireland, or the ideological positions of the political parties in Ireland or the nature and demise of the Celtic Tiger? If we leave aside journalists like Fintan O’Toole, Eoin Harris and John Waters, then we are left looking for intellectual input. Talk radio, most notably the Newstalk station, has come to the fore in encouraging debate about contemporary issues, and the journalist Vincent Brown, in his current affairs programme on the TV3 television station, is also engaged in an ongoing robust critique of state institutions. The late Conor Cruise O’Brien was the last presiding intellectual presence in Irish public life, and his rigorous unpacking of nationalist and republican ideology, in a specifically Irish context, was paradigm- changing in terms of the attitudes of a large number of Irish people, and there has, as yet, been little to replace him, though Michael Cronin is perhaps the heir apparent to this role in that his discourse ranges across a number of disciplines. There have been a number of commentators of an economic leaning who have come to the fore in the recent recession-driven discourse – David McWilliams, Eddie Hobbs and George Lee (recently elected to Dáil Éireann in a bye-election for the Fine Gael party) – but these people comment on matters financial and seem to see social and cultural issues as a distraction of the superstructure when we should all be examining the base, to use a Marxist paradigm.

3 But before we examine why France seems to have a flourishing public sphere and Ireland does not, it is first necessary to explore some aspects of the very concept of a public sphere. The term derives from the work of, Jürgen Habermas, the neo-Marxist thinker of the Frankfurt School. His first book, The Structural Transformation in the Public Sphere, appeared in 1962 and it explored the emergence of the public sphere between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. He saw it as a process of ongoing debate between equals. It “cannot be conceived as an institution and certainly not as an organisation”, writes Habermas, rather it is “a network for communicating information and points of view4”. The public sphere is where ideas and information are shared – outside of the pressures of the economic or political system. It is where public opinions are formed as a result of communication. Hannah Arendt sees this public sphere as a

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liminal state, between the private world and the public world. It is a “social space” which is “neither private nor public, strictly speaking, a relatively new phenomenon whose origin coincided with the emergence of the modern age and which found its political form in the nation-state5”. The major institutions which gave rise to the public sphere included the salons in France, the learned and literary societies in Germany and the coffee houses in England. Habermas traced the historical evolution of the institutions of public opinion through to their apparent decline in the modern social- welfare state, where state and society penetrate each other. Initially, the various communications media could help generate the public sphere as articles in newspapers or pamphlets often precipitated discussions, but their later commercialization and trivialization brought about the rapid decline and “refeudalization6” of the public sphere. As Habermas notes, when the mass media draw their material from “powerful, well-organised information producers” and “as long as they prefer media strategies that lower rather than raise the discursive level of public communication, issues will tend to start in and be managed from, the centre rather than follow a spontaneous course originating in the periphery7”.

4 The public sphere, therefore, is not umbilically related to any specific mode of production or communication. For Habermas, a reasoned disagreement is the basic point of departure for the modern public sphere and his discourse theory of democracy “privileges a strong procedural distinction between culture and the political8”. Thus it is an idealized space in a way, a space of debate, close to the Kantian sensus communis, which is related to economic and political interests but not constituted by them. The term sensus communis is used by Kant in his Third Critique to indicate not merely the sense of being part of society, but rather a special sense that fits us into a human community. It is a specifically community sense because “communication and speech depend upon it, and without communication we could neither constitute nor enter into a community9”. As Terry Eagleton has noted, it is no longer the social power of individuals but the way in which “they are constituted as discoursing subjects by sharing in a consensus of universal reason10”. Now while the status of universal reason has become problematic in the light of deconstructive, postmodern and post-Marxist thinking, nevertheless this quotation holds true in terms of defining the epistemological status of the public sphere. And I would agree with Žižek here in terms of the definition of the ‘universal’, which is not an identification with an “all- encompassing global Substance” but rather, the identification with “a universal ethico- political principle – a universal religious collective, a scientific collective, a global revolutionary organization, all of which are in principle accessible to everyone”: This is what Kant, in the famous passage of “What Is Enlightenment?”, means by “public” as opposed to “private”: “private” is not individual as opposed to communal ties, but the very communal-institutional order of one’s particular identification; while “public” is the transnational universality of the exercise of one’s Reason. The paradox is thus that one participates in the universal dimension of the “public” sphere precisely as a singular individual extracted from or even opposed to one’s substantial communal identification – one is truly universal only as radically singular, in the interstices of communal identities11.

5 For James Tully, a public sphere of “free speech, assembly and dissent” is vital in terms of an informed citizenship if people are not to “submit uncritically to the socialisation and media glorification of a life of negative freedom and private consumption12”. As Habermas has observed, “reasoned argumentation, not the status or authority of the speaker, was to be the sole arbiter in debate13”; nothing was to be protected from

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criticism, as reasoned critique was allowed to compete with the feudal authority of the church and the court as an arbiter of opinion, and finally the norms of the public sphere were intolerant of all cliquish inclinations in which merely private interests might seek to assert their combined weight and influence. The issues discussed “became ‘general’not merely in their significance, but also in their accessibility: everyone had to be able to participate14”. In other words, it is a sphere where issues of public importance are debated and discussed in a manner that is untrammelled by the bonds of discipline or of political allegiance.

6 It is clear, then, that the relationship between the public sphere and the economic and political sphere is not simple, but nevertheless it is essential in a modern democratic culture as a bridge between the public and private. In contemporary postmodern culture, there is a media-sphere or cyber-sphere which are aspects of the public sphere as communication has now entered into these new modalities. Thus the internet can be a development of the salon or periodical and, as Calbrese and Borchert have pointed out, instances of cyberdemocracy have existed and will continue to exist. Whether they are random, institutionalised or commonplace is perhaps “not what is most important about democracy15”. In this sense, cyberdemocracy and the mediasphere have the potential to enable the public sphere as they can facilitate an equality of communication16, but there is always the possibility that they will become feudalised in the sense of becoming a hierarchically-driven vehicle for the transmission of a hegemonic view as opposed to a place where there can be intellectual communication and critique of society, economics and politics.

7 So, as my purpose here is to look at examples of the French public sphere and to compare and contrast this with an Irish public sphere, then on the basis of my opening paragraph, this should be a very brief article. However, I propose instead to attempt to learn from the French example of how a public sphere can be created which allows for the input of intellectual ideas, and more importantly for an informed intellectual critique of the political and social spheres, and I will then offer a theoretical, and I hope intellectual, assessment of the Irish socio-political situation, and of how we got to the present impasse, and a putative solution to the current problems. I do not expect that there will be universal agreement with my ideas but if in the space of this journal, I can initiate a debate on the correct ordering and organisation of an Irish public sphere, then I will feel that my work has been done.

French theory and the public sphere

8 To say that the French public sphere is super-saturated in terms of intellectual input would be a truism. One could list out a number of intellectuals who have helped to transform the global public sphere let alone the French one, but two examples will suffice to make this clear, a very positive one and the other an oddly negative one. To begin with the positive, much has been made of the influence of French intellectual writings on raising student consciousness in Paris in 1968. The student uprisings of May 1968 in Paris, and those in Prague and Los Angeles of the same year, were to some extent inspired by French intellectual thought, most notably by those thinkers belonging to the “French theory” circle17. In 1966, Jacques Lacan’s Écrits18 and Michel Foucault’s The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences were published 19. Jacques Derrida’s Of Grammatology was published the following year20. These three texts

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asked seminal questions about the nature of culture and human organisations, questions which would prove to have a destabilising and largely emancipatory force on the discourses of the human sciences. The literary and theoretical origins of much of les événements has been traced in a recent article by Jean-Michel Rabaté in Parrhesia. Discussing Michel de Certeau’s La Prise de Parole: pour une nouvelle culture21, a book about the May uprising in Paris in 1968, Rabaté notes that: Like most commentators, de Certeau noted the somewhat nostalgic mode of many May slogans – along with the practice of heaping up paving stones to make barricades, a hangover from the Paris insurrections in the 1830s, 1848 and 1871. The Paris Commune, with its blend of anarchism, utopian socialism and neo- Marxism was a dominant utopia in 1968. This is why most of the mottos had a quotational air and knowingly returned to the slogans of Spanish anarchists during the civil war, the jokes of Dadaists, or the neo-Romantic tags of the Surrealists. It was also obvious that quite a few slogans came from Lacan’s teachings, including the word jouissance that was spreading on all the walls of Paris22.

9 Indeed, “jouissez sans entraves” was one of the slogans of les événements as is revealed in the famous photograph taken by Henri Cartier-Bresson23. Lacan, developing the work of Freud, undercut the notion of rationality as the dominant factor in our humanity and instead began to examine language as an index of the unconscious processes of the mind. He also coined the phrase that the “unconscious is structured like a language24”, which brought the study of structures to the fore in continental thought. For Lacan, the unconscious and language could no longer be seen as givens, or as natural; instead, they were structures which required investigation. In this model, language, no matter what the mode of enunciation, was shot through with metaphors, metonymies and complex codifications which often masked, as opposed to revealed, the real self. His placing of desire at the centre of the epistemology of the subject – “the function of desire is a last residuum of the effect of the signifier in the subject. Desidero is the Freudian cogito25” – has led to a revision of the primacy of reason in the human sciences.

10 Given the nature of the French public sphere, Lacan, in his psychoanalytic seminars, felt free to discuss the events of May 1968. He referred to Raymond Aron’s critique of students’ rebelling in different campuses – Paris, Columbia, Poland – and noted that Aron’s article “reflects the thinking of honest people who say: it is happening everywhere. But in saying that, for him that means precisely everywhere they make the same racket26”. Lacan notes that Aron’s reference to the globalization of the unrest is a telling point, but he feels that the article, while strong in style and tone, is missing out on a key structural point about the riots. As Rabaté notes: “the structural knot that Lacan was looking for would have to be situated at the hinge between knowledge and truth. Such a knot could be probed or assessed by psychoanalysis, since as a discourse, psychoanalysis was also interested in the transmission of its knowledge27.” Here we see the public sphere in action as psychoanalysis, which is traditionally seen as a micro- science, focusing on the internal workings of single subjects, is now becoming a macro- science, analysing a whole generation of students. Indeed when one of the leaders of the students, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, told members of Lacan’s school that they could help only by throwing paving stones at the police, Lacan developed the idea that a paving stone could embody the notion of object petit a. The point is that, in the seminar: The sudden juxtaposition of Aron and Cohn-Bendit is remarkable: the liberal- turned-conservative who kept denouncing the “imaginary revolution” of well-off students and their vain psychodrama is side by side with the activist. Lacan refused

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to align himself with either, but, facing their contradictory positions, attempted to situate their discourses in a psychoanalytic context28.

11 In fact, Lacan’s view on revolutions was quite jaundiced, as he noted that “I would tell you that the aspiration to revolution has but one conceivable issue, always, the discourse of the master. That is what experience has proved. What you, as revolutionaries, aspire to is a Master. You will have one29”. In spite of this, Lacan’s reaction to the revolutionary events was quite nuanced, but he was held by some as being partly responsible for the events of May 1968 and was asked to leave the École Normale Supérieure30. What is most interesting is that matters of current social and political importance are being addressed on an intellectual level, without polemical or ideological bias, and in the spirit of inquiry – the public sphere in action.

12 Michel Foucault, who saw himself as a specialist in the history of systems of thought, probed the nature of knowledge itself, arguing that the different aspects of what counts as knowledge in a given historical period – intellectual, cultural, political – form an “episteme”, and he saw the function of the historian of ideas as involving the disentangling of the different layers of discourse which constitutes that episteme. The question which he addressed in all of his work was how have the objects of my knowledge been produced and how have the questions I address to them been produced? This level of analysis of the systems through which culture expresses itself would have profound implications for our understanding of society in general and of Irish society, with its very static systems of control and organisation of knowledge, in particular. He, too, reacted to les événements on an intellectual level, noting that “without May 1968, I would never have done such investigations as those on the prison31”. For Foucault, this prison work “provided [him] with the opportunity to stitch together the loose ends that had troubled me in works like the History of Madness or Birth of the Clinic32”. Clearly once again major events become refracted in the public sphere and they give rise to different and alternate engagements in terms of causal factors and consequences, and this intellectual activity is part of a contemporary plural reaction to, and critique of, events.

13 It was with this same issue of structurality that Derrida’s work was concerned, as he postulates that the history of any process of meaning or signification is always predicated on some “centre”, some validating point seen as a “full presence which is beyond play33”. Derrida, and perhaps specifically his neologism “deconstruction”, has become a synecdoche of this process of theoretical critique, and of intellectual engagement with every structure that exists in society. At its most basic, deconstruction consists in taking the binary oppositions which are constructive of the epistemological paradigm of Western philosophy and, as Derrida himself notes: “to deconstruct the opposition, first of all, is to overturn the hierarchy at a given moment34.” For Derrida, the teleology of deconstructive critique involves the imbrication of text with context. He is unwilling to bracket any field of cultural endeavour within its own self-defined parameters. Deconstruction, he says, consists of “a thinking through of transference”, and his most “elliptical and economical” definition of deconstruction is “plus d’une langue – both more than a language and no more of a language35”. The idea of hermetically sealed-off cultures, national languages, ideologies are deconstructed to reveal a broader context of comparison and contrast, a process which will have ramifications for any exploration of Irish social, cultural and political mores. Indeed for Derrida, the public sphere is being globalized and in a joint article with Habermas, this very point is made, as Habermas maintains that the

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simultaneity of mass demonstrations that erupted across European centres on 15 February 2003 to the “sneak attack” of the “coalition of the willing” on Iraq “may well, in hindsight, go down in history as a sign of the birth of a European public sphere36”.

14 Another critic, Roland Barthes, in Mythologies, applied the techniques of what had been hitherto for literary analysis, to a complex range of culture iconic, linguistic and visual signifiers, offering readings of different items of culture which laid bare the ideological imperatives through which their seemingly natural meanings had come into being. Barthes’s lucid and complex readings of phenomena as diverse as wrestling, steak, the motor car, the iconography of a black soldier saluting the French flag, was to become a template for future studies of the semiotics of culture. Barthes explained the aims of the book in terms which are especially significant for this paper: This book has a double theoretical framework: on the one hand, an ideological critique bearing on the language of so-called mass culture; on the other, a first attempt to analyse semiologically the mechanics of this language. I had just read Saussure and as a result acquired the conviction that by treating ‘collective representations’as sign-systems, one might hope to go further than the pious show of unmasking them and account in detail for the mystification which transforms petit-bourgeois culture into a universal nature37.

15 The book was originally published in French in 1957, and interestingly in a preface to a revised edition, written in 1970, Barthes goes on to critique the mode of operation of the book itself, making the point that he could not write it now, not because what brought it about has now disappeared, but because “ideological criticism, at the very moment when the need for it was again made brutally evident (May ’68), has become more sophisticated38”. The reference to May ’68 is important as it demonstrates that French intellectuals see themselves very much as writing within their public sphere, indeed, they see their writings as helping to create that very sphere. Writing in Image Music Text, Barthes would suggest a globalised public sphere avant la lettre, when he notes that: In an initial moment, the aim was the destruction of the (ideological) signified; in a second, it is that of the destruction of the sign: ‘mythoclasm’ is succeeded by a ‘semioclasm’which is much more far-reaching and pitched at a different level. The historical field of action is thus widened: no longer the (narrow) sphere of French society but far beyond that, historically and geographically, the whole of Western civilization (Graeco- Judaeo-Islamo-Christian) […] from Plato to France-Dimanche39.

16 Here we see a globalised frame of reference and of interplay; here we see a globalised public sphere, where debate is transnational, a public sphere that again relates to the points made by Derrida and Habermas. Habermas has said that the next incarnation of the public sphere would be “a European-wide, integrated public sphere [which] develops in the ambit of a common political culture: a civil society encompassing interest associations, nongovernmental organizations, citizens’movements40”.

Is there an Irish public sphere?

17 Clearly, to return to Intellectual Impostures, the notion that this level of social critique is that of intellectual imposters is a point that is very much open to debate, but what is fascinating to an Irish reader about this book is that some thirty years after the books mentioned in the opening section of this essay, the theoretical public sphere of French intellectual activity had become such a “given” that there can be a debate about the

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aspects of intellectual activity that are seen as challenging. Although some French historians have shed a somewhat different light on the role of French intellectuals in the 1960s41, the “events” of 1968, which we have been looking at, were culture and epoch-defining in French society, and as such, were part of the public sphere. However, in recent years in Ireland there have been a number of “events” which have had similar seismic effects on Irish society and culture. I would argue that had we a defined public sphere in Ireland, then these “events” could form the genesis of systemic and structural change in terms of the future of Irish society.

18 The ongoing war in Northern Ireland, which resulted in the deaths of some 3,600 people was carried out under the aegis of the Provisional IRA, who saw themselves as part of a republican tradition that stretched back to Wolfe Tone and Robert Emmet. Gerry Adams has frequently contextualised the PIRA campaign in the overall context of the rebellions of 1798, 1848 and 1916, and has used these as a form of political and ethical warrant for the bombing campaigns in Northern Ireland and on mainland Britain. There has been comparatively little discussion of this narrative structuring of republicanism in Irish intellectual circles. Indeed, there is almost a revised revisionism coming about as republicanism is being seen as a valid form of political ideology in an Irish context without ever having its epistemological position unpacked. Given that the aims of provisional Sinn Fein are similar to those of the IRA, namely a 32-county united Ireland, and given that the largest political party in Ireland, and the one which has been in almost continuous government since 1932, Fianna Fáil, shares this aim, and further given that the subtitle of Fianna Fáil is “The Republican Party”, one would expect that the epistemology of Irish republicanism would be the subject of ongoing debate in an Irish public sphere but one would be wrong. Here, the value of an intellectual consideration of this grand narrative would have significant ramifications for people’s attitudes to the “republicanism” of each of these parties.

19 In June of 2009, the Ryan Report was released which outlined and detailed levels of institutional abuse of children in church-run institutions over a period of some fifty years. With an “unconditional apology”, the Congregation of the Sisters of Mercy said: We accept that many who spent their childhoods in our orphanages or industrial schools were hurt and damaged while in our care. We are mindful of all who, as children, were cared for by us in our institutions. We know that it is a very painful time for you as you read the findings of this report. It is a very difficult time for our sisters and our lay staff who gave long service in caring for children in our residential institutions. There is a great sadness in all of our hearts at this time and our deepest desire is to continue the healing process for all involved42.

20 The Conference of Religious in Ireland (CORI) acknowledged “the pain and hurt experienced by many”. CORI went on to add that “most importantly, all of us must now make certain that we continue to learn from the past by ensuring that all vulnerable people are provided with quality care which respects their needs and dignity and reflects the compassion of Christ43”. These are fine words, but the “unconditional” nature of the apology was called into question by the deal which the religious orders involved did with the state, in the shape of government minister Michael Woods, which indemnified them against financial reparations. That the orders would seek to negotiate these reparations is certainly at odds with any true sense of regret or responsibility and one would think that in a public sphere, there would be questions raised as to state support of these orders in terms of teaching salaries or capitation grants or indeed of the value and correctness of their continuing role in the education

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and care of the young, given the range and systemic nature of the abuse and of the subsequent ongoing campaigns of avoidance of blame for that abuse. Some over 800 known abusers in over 200 institutions during a period of 35 years have been identified in terms of having committed acts of violence, sexual oppression and criminal assault on the children in these homes but because of an immunity deal, none of these will be named and none of these will be prosecuted. Without a valid and energised public sphere, there is merely a journalistic flurry which is time-dependent and as soon as the next story comes along, then discussion is shelved and there is neither democratic accountability nor responsibility in the case of these actions.

21 One of the main images left in the mind after two days reporting of brutality was of a twelve-year-old boy in one of the institutions who was being so badly beaten on a second floor landing that he fell over the banisters and died. The fact that no-one will be charged for this act is a very real indictment of church and state in this country, but in the absence of ongoing critique, it is one which, like Freud’s repetition complex, is destined to be repeated again and again, in different aspects of Irish life. We have seen this in the Irish socio-political system in recent times. Despite serious inappropriate, and possibly illegal, behaviours in our banking system, none of the major players has suffered in any way. The AGMs of the banks, while a little heated, still elect the same boards of executive and non-executive directors, and the shareholders still have to accept their losses while the institutions are underwritten to the tune of billions by the taxpayers – very often those same shareholders. There are very few voices of critique here – the general opinion of commentators is that while this is unfair and unjust, the banks are structurally necessary to the economy and so must be kept in business. The Gardai did enter Anglo-Irish bank and took away a number of documents and computers, but one imagines there will be no need to rush through the building of the new Clover Hill Prison to house the directors of Anglo after they are charged and convicted. The same is true of the National Assets Management Agency (NAMA) which will attempt to buy up the bad debts of the banks and thus absolve the Banks, their bondholders and shareholders of all fiscal responsibility and instead the taxpayers of Ireland will assume the debts over the coming years.

22 There is little or no public debate among intellectuals about these matters and the results are that the system is able to batten down the hatches while the media discuss the initial news-bite and then the furore dies down and things move along in the usual fashion. The narrative is dictated from the top of the system and the lack of a discernible public sphere is an eloquent silence in the Ireland of today. In postmodern Ireland, the overriding emotion towards metanarratives is one of acceptance, and hence we are not truly postmodern in the sense described by Lyotard, when he defined postmodernism as an “incredulity toward metanarratives44”. Republicanism, religion, governmental structures and the banking system – all of these need to be offered to ongoing critique in a public sphere in a manner parallel to that of the French public sphere. It is to be hoped that intellectuals in Ireland will take up the torch that has been kept alight for so long by French intellectuals and it would be a significant mark of progress in the creation of such public sphere if a book by Irish authors criticising Irish intellectual imposters were to be published because it would be a significant marker of the achievement of a public sphere in Ireland. And if we are to develop as a society, and deal with all of the problems of the twenty first century, such a sphere is necessary. Ireland is well-equipped technologically-speaking to initiate a public sphere.

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The media, cyberspace, mobile technology, the blogsphere and electronic journals will all have a part to play in the global public sphere, but it is not enough to just have the technology because “the public sphere must not itself be ‘subverted by power’, whether that of large organizations or the mass media45”. In Habermas’s “two-track” view of democratic law-making, formally institutionalized deliberation and decision-making must be open to input from informal public spheres. This means that the political must not become an autonomous system, operating solely according to its own criteria of efficiency and unresponsive to citizen concerns, nor should it become subservient to particular interests that have access to administrative power through unofficial paths of influence that by-pass the democratic process46. The intellectual imposters contretemps was an example, albeit a negative one, of the strength of the French public sphere – in Ireland, we should be so lucky!

NOTES

1. Alan Sokal, “Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity”, Social Text 46/47 (1996), p. 230. 2. Sokal and Bricmont’s original title was Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals’ Abuse of Science, New York, Picador, 1998. 3. Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont, Intellectual Impostures: Postmodern Philosophers’ Abuse of Science, London, Profile Books, 1999, p. X. 4. Jürgen Habermas, Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy, Cambridge, Massachusetts, MIT Press, 1996, p. 360. 5. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, introduction by Margaret Canovan, 2nd ed., Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1998, p. 28. 6. Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, Cambridge, Massachusetts, MIT Press, 1989, p. 231. 7. Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, p. 360. 8. Greg Marc Nielsen, The Norms of Answerability Social Theory between Bakhtin and Habermas, foreword by Caryl Emerson, New York, State University of New York Press, 2002, p. 2. 9. Maurizio Passerin D’entrèves, “Arendt’s Theory of Judgment”, in The Cambridge Companion to Hannah Arendt, ed. Dana R. Villa, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006, p. 245-260, p. 252. 10. Terry Eagleton, The Function of Criticism: From ‘The Spectator’ to Post-Structuralism, London, Verso, 1996, p. 9. 11. Slavoj Žižek, The Parallax View, Cambridge, Massachusetts, MIT Press, 2006, p. 10. 12. James Tully, Public Philosophy in a New Key, vol. II: Imperialism and Civic Freedom, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2008, p. 54. 13. Habermas, The Structural Transformation, p. 37.

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14. Ibid., p. 52. 15. Andrew Calabrese and Mark Borchert, “Prospects for Electronic Democracy in the United States: Rethinking Communication and Social Policy’, Media, Culture & Society 18 (1996), p. 49-268, p. 264. 16. John Hartley, Popular Reality: Journalism, Modernity and Popular Culture, London, Arnold, 1996, passim. 17. For a French perspective on the subject, see François Cusset, French Theory – Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze & Cie et les mutations de la vie intellectuelle aux Etats-Unis, Paris, La Découverte, 2003, passim. 18. Jacques Lacan, Écrits, Paris, Seuil, 1966; Écrits – A Selection, trans. Alan Sheridan, London, Tavistock, 1977; Écrits: The First Complete Edition in English, trans. Bruce Fink, in collaboration with Héloïse Fink and Russell Grigg, New York, Norton, 2006. 19. Michel Foucault, Les Mots et les choses, Paris, Gallimard, 1966; The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences, trans. Alan Sheridan, New York, Random House, 1970. 20. Jacques Derrida, De la Grammatologie, Paris, Minuit, 1967; Of Grammatology, trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, London, Johns Hopkins Press, 1976. 21. Michel de Certeau, La Prise de Parole: pour une nouvelle culture, Paris, Desclée de Brouwer, 1968. 22. Jean-Michel Rabaté, Jean-Michel, « 68 + 1: Lacan’s année érotique », Parrhesia 6 (2009), p. 28-45, p. 35. 23. Yannis Stavrakakis, Lacan and the Political, London, Routledge, 1999, p. 46. 24. Jacques Lacan, The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1977, p. 20. 25. Ibid., p. 154. 26. Gaogoa, Transcriptions des Séminaires de Lacan, http://gaogoa.free.fr/seminaires.htm, 15-05-1968, p. 208. 27. Rabaté, « 68 + 1: Lacan’s année érotique », p. 32. 28. Ibid. 29. Jacques Lacan, Television: A Challenge to the Psychoanalytic Establishment, trans. Denis Hollier, Rosalind Krauss, and Annette Michelson, ed. Joan Copjec, New York, Norton, 1990, p. 126. 30. Stavrakakis, Lacan and the Political, p. 11. 31. Michel Foucault, Remarks on Marx, trans. R. James Goldstein and James Cascaito, New York, Semiotext(e), 1991, p. 140. 32. Ibid., p. 139. 33. Jacques Derrida, Writing and Difference, trans. Alan Bass, London, Routledge, 1978, p. 280. 34. Jacques Derrida, Positions, trans. Alan Bass, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1981, p. 41. 35. Jacques Derrida, Jacques, Mémoires: For Paul de Man, trans. Cecile Lindsay, Jonathan Culler and Eduardo Cadava, New York, Columbia University Press, 1989, p. 14-15.

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36. Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida, “February 15, or What Binds Europeans Together: A Plea for a Common Foreign Policy, Beginning in the Core of Europe”, Constellations 10.3 (2003), p. 291-297, p. 291. 37. Roland Barthes, Mythologies, selected and translated from the French by Annette Lavers, New York, The Noonday Press, 1972, p. 8. 38. Ibid., p. 8. 39. Roland Barthes, Image Music Text, essays selected and translated by Stephen Heath, London, Fontana, 1977, p. 84. 40. Jürgen Habermas, “Does Europe Need a Constitution? A Response to Dieter Grimm”, The Inclusion of the Other: Studies in Political Theory, Cambridge, MA, The MIT Press, 1998, p. 155-161, p. 160. 41. For a recent reappraisal of this vexed issue, see Jean-François Sirinelli, Mai 68 – L’événement Janus, Paris, Fayard, 2008, p. 243-244 (“Intellectuels en sourdine”). 42. The Irish Examiner, May 21st, 2009. 43. Ibid. 44. Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, trans. Geoffrey Bennington and Brian Massumi, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984, p. XXIV. 45. William Rehg, “Translator’s Introduction”, in Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, 1996, p. IX-XXXIX, p. XXXI-II. 46. Pauline Johnson, Habermas: Rescuing the Public Sphere, London, Routledge, 2006, p. 92.

ABSTRACTS

Looking back on the challenge posed to critical theory by the publication in 1999 of Sokal and Bricmont’s book, Intellectual Impostures, this essay argues that the latter was at least evidence of the ongoing vitality of the French public sphere, thirty years after most of the books indicted in it had been published. Throwing light on the French political context in which they appeared, specifically the events of May ’68, it then tries to assess the reasons why events of similar import in contemporary Ireland and Northern Ireland have not prompted the same level of debate, and points out the want of a real Irish public sphere as one possible cause.

Revenant sur la parution en 1999 de l’ouvrage de Sokal et Bricmont, Impostures intellectuelles, et sur le défi critique que celui-ci a constitué, cet article avance l’idée selon laquelle un tel livre était au moins la preuve de la vitalité persistante de la sphère publique française, plus de trente ans après que les essais incriminés ont été publiés. Si l’on compare le contexte politique français dans lequel ces essais furent publiés, notamment les événements de mai 68, et le contexte récent en Irlande et en Irlande du Nord, où des événements de signification semblable se sont produits, on peut s’interroger sur les raisons qui font que ces derniers n’ont pas donné lieu à des débats d’un même niveau : l’absence d’une véritable sphère publique irlandaise est avancée comme l’une des causes possibles.

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INDEX

Mots-clés: débat public, intellectuels, relations franco-irlandaises Keywords: public debate, intellectuals, Franco-Irish relations

AUTHOR

EUGENE O’BRIEN Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick

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Comptes rendus de lecture

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Dramatis Personae & Other Writings Television Plays High Pop

Sophie Lecerf

RÉFÉRENCE

Stewart Parker, Dramatis Personae & Other Writings, G. Dawe, M. Johnston, C. Wallace (eds.), Prague, Litteria Pragensia, 2008, 120 p., ISBN 80-7308-241-3 Stewart Parker, Television Plays, C. Wallace (ed.), Prague, Litteria Pragensia, 2008, ISBN 80-7308-240-6 ; New York, Syracuse University Press, 2009, 580 p., ISBN 978-80-7308-240-6 Stewart Parker, High Pop: The Irish Times Column 1970-1976, G. Dawe and M. Johnston (eds.), Belfast, Lagan Press, 2008, 400 p., ISBN 978-1-904652-59-5

1 Écrivain prolifique et polyvalent, Stewart Parker fut tout d’abord poète, romancier et critique, rencontrant un vif succès, au début des années 70, avec une chronique musicale bimensuelle intitulée « High Pop », publiée dans l’Irish Times. À partir de 1975, il se consacra presque exclusivement au théâtre et, en l’espace d’une douzaine d’années, il produisit huit pièces pour la scène, parmi lesquelles Spokesong (1975), Northern Star (1984) et Pentecost (1987) devenues des classiques du répertoire théâtral irlandais. Il écrivit également quatre pièces originales pour la radio, huit scénarii et pièces pour la télévision – dont une série en six parties – et un scénario original pour le cinéma.

2 En dépit de cette œuvre abondante, régulièrement primée par la critique1, Parker n’est jamais vraiment parvenu à asseoir sa notoriété de son vivant et, vingt ans après sa mort, il reste relativement méconnu en Irlande. Sa disparition prématurée en 1988, quelques mois seulement après le triomphe de Pentecost, a certainement contribué à plonger son œuvre dans l’oubli. D’autant que, pendant longtemps, la diffusion de ses pièces est restée très limitée. Ainsi il aura fallu attendre l’an 2000 pour que son théâtre fasse l’objet de rééditions – sous la forme d’une anthologie en deux volumes dans la collection anglaise « Methuen Contemporary Dramatists2 » – alors que la plupart de ses

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pièces, parues originellement chez Gallery Press, Samuel French ou Oberon étaient épuisées depuis plusieurs années3. En 2004, les efforts de Philip Hobsbaum, fondateur du Group à Belfast dans les années 60, avaient permis la publication par une petite maison d’édition irlandaise, Summer Palace Press, de Paddy Dies, un recueil rassemblant les poèmes de jeunesse du dramaturge. Néanmoins, la plupart de ses écrits demeuraient inédits ou introuvables, en particulier les pièces radiophoniques et télévisuelles, ainsi que ses essais théoriques. La mobilisation d’une poignée d’universitaires – Mark Phelan à Queen’s University (Belfast), Gerald Dawe à Trinity College (Dublin) et Clare Wallace à Charles University (Prague) – vient toutefois d’aboutir à la publication de trois ouvrages, lancés simultanément au cours de la série d’hommages et de conférences organisés à Belfast en octobre 2008 à l’occasion du vingtième anniversaire de la mort du dramaturge. De manière très significative, et qui en dit long sur la très lente reconnaissance de l’œuvre de Parker en Irlande, c’est une jeune maison d’édition tchèque, Litteraria Pragensia, qui a publié deux des trois ouvrages.

3 High Pop, le seul des trois opus publié à Belfast, a le mérite de rappeler qu’avant de se consacrer au théâtre, Stewart Parker fut le premier critique de musique pop rock que l’Irlande ait jamais connu. L’ouvrage, paru chez Lagan Press, réunit toutes les critiques qu’il publia dans sa rubrique « High Pop » dans l’Irish Times entre 1970 et 1976. Le poète Gerald Dawe, originaire de Belfast comme le dramaturge, et Maria Johnstone, une de ses étudiantes à Trinity College, à Dublin, les ont classées par ordre chronologique, en conservant les titres d’origine et la mise en page originelle, même lorsqu’elle était caduque ou arbitraire. En résulte un témoignage unique, qui se lit comme une chronique de l’âge d’or de la musique pop-rock, emmenée par un auteur à la fois exigeant, remarquablement érudit, et à l’enthousiasme communicatif. « Parker writes with panache, curiosity and a real sense of history » note Gerald Dawe dans son introduction. Le dramaturge aborde la musique pop-rock comme un genre majeur, stigmatisant tout ce qui lui paraît facile, commercial ou répétitif. Capable d’une irrévérence réjouissante, il assume totalement ses goûts, quitte à se trouver à contre- courant. À l’occasion très corrosif, il s’en prend par exemple à David Bowie ou Led Zeppelin, ou encore à Dylan ou Lennon, avec lesquels il ne cesse de se brouiller et de se réconcilier. À l’évidence, Parker traque les nouveaux talents et les nouveaux sons, reconnaissant immédiatement le génie de Pink Floyd ou Mike Olfield. Mais il a également ses préférés. Chaque nouvel album de Joni Mitchell est salué avec la ferveur d’un fan. Fidèle à ses origines, auxquelles il fait perpétuellement allusion, Parker chante les louanges de Van Morrison, né comme lui dans les quartiers ouvriers de Belfast est, et rend à l’occasion un hommage appuyé au compositeur nord-irlandais Jimmy Kennedy.

4 Tout au long des critiques rédigées par Parker émergent certains thèmes de prédilection qui vont revenir de façon récurrente dans son théâtre. Ainsi, l’auteur ne cesse de s’interroger sur la fonction de l’artiste dans la société, en particulier lorsqu’elle est en crise. Dans un article intitulé « The North in Song », il se désespère de la médiocrité de la production musicale et littéraire engendrée par les Troubles en Irlande du Nord :

The ballads that “have come out of it” so far are depraved, vindictive adaptations of other songs, the literature that has come out of it is stiffly self-conscious and horribly uncertain of itself. Nothing has come out of it except death, agony and a murderous hatred which

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our forms of expression have shown themselves unable to assuage or to define.

5 L’ouvrage est accompagné d’une notice biographique consacrée à Stewart Parker, qui a le grand mérite de rectifier nombre d’erreurs largement véhiculées dans les quelques articles consacrés au dramaturge. On regrettera simplement que Spokesong, pièce dont la caractéristique est de se jouer des conventions naturalistes et d’introduire une théâtralité novatrice sur la scène irlandaise, soit bizarrement présentée comme « ‘a play about the reality’ of the Troubles ». En revanche, la préface de Gerald Dawe offre une introduction très utile pour le lecteur peu familier de l’épopée de la musique pop-rock dans les années 70.

6 Dans Dramatis Personae & Others Writings4, sont réunis, pour la première fois, les essais et écrits théoriques de Parker dont « Dramatis Personae » la conférence en forme de manifeste qu’il donna le 5 juin 1986 à Queen’s University à Belfast. Il s’agit là d’un texte essentiel, dans lequel le dramaturge, dont l’écriture et les techniques expérimentales furent souvent mal accueillies par un public irlandais acquis à la tradition verbale de l’Abbey Theatre, explicite sa démarche artistique. Parker y développe le concept de jeu, à la fois principe structurel et thématique centrale de son théâtre, se référant largement à une étude publiée en 1938 par le philosophe et historien hollandais Johan Huizinga5. Puisant à la fois dans le théâtre médiéval et les dramaturgies modernes, il aborde le jeu, non seulement comme un principe civilisateur – « ludo ergo sum » – preuve irréfutable de l’humanité de ses personnages, comme chez Beckett, mais il insiste également sur sa dimension dynamique puisqu’il permet à l’individu d’échapper au déterminisme absolu du monde qui l’entoure, comme chez Brecht. Ainsi « Dramatis Personae » inscrit le refus d’une perspective unique et du sens figé au cœur de la dramaturgie parkerienne. Evoquant des expériences enfantines – un spectacle de magie et son premier rôle au théâtre dans la Moralité Everyman – le dramaturge définit les règles du jeu et insiste sur la nécessaire dualité de l’écriture dramatique, « the fusion of the ideas and fun » pour reprendre l’expression utilisée par Clare Wallace dans la postface. Bien qu’il réaffirme, dans ce texte, son refus d’être considéré comme un auteur politique, stigmatisant le dogmatisme des auteurs post-brechtiens britanniques, Parker se positionne comme tel en insistant sur la fonction centrale de l’artiste, seul capable de réintroduire du jeu là où tout apparaît figé.

7 Dans la deuxième partie de l’ouvrage, sont réunis par ordre chronologique divers textes publiés par le dramaturge tout au long de sa carrière. Dans « The Green Light », transcription d’une émission enregistrée en 1971 pour le Northern Ireland Home Service de la BBC, Parker, dont la carrière de dramaturge est encore balbutiante, dresse la genèse de sa vocation artistique, cultivant avec dérision l’image du poète, à la santé chétive, dévoré dès l’enfance par son désir d’écrire. Dans cette deuxième partie, on retrouve également une série de quatre articles parus dans le courant de l’année 1970 dans l’Irish Times, quelques mois après le début des Troubles. Parker y explore ses origines, dressant un portrait saisissant de la communauté ouvrière protestante de Belfast est, au sein de laquelle il a grandi. S’adressant à un lectorat irlandais, il déconstruit l’image largement répandue du loyaliste névrosé et psychopathe, tout en reconnaissant que la communauté a elle-même contribué, par son mutisme, à la diffusion de représentations très négatives des protestants nord-irlandais. En lieu et place d’un monolithe indestructible, Parker dépeint un groupe disparate et complexe, livré à lui-même et en proie à une profonde crise identitaire. À travers ces textes écrits

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au début des années 70, on est frappé par l’urgence d’écrire du dramaturge, à fois accablé par l’éclatement de la violence et déjà convaincu qu’il a, en tant qu’artiste, un rôle crucial à jouer, en subvertissant les mythes destructeurs ancrés dans l’inconscient collectif protestant.

8 Dans les articles suivants, émerge pourtant la frustration grandissante de Parker que l’état sinistré de la scène théâtrale nord-irlandaise a contraint à renoncer à produire ses pièces à Belfast, devant le public auquel elles étaient initialement destinées. L’euphorie procurée par le triomphe de sa première pièce pour la scène, Spokesong, au festival de théâtre de Dublin en 1975 laisse progressivement la place à une profonde amertume avec l’échec successif de Catchpenny Twist et de Nightshade, produits par le Peacock Theatre à Dublin. Dans « State of Play », un article publié dans le Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, il dénonce ce qu’il perçoit comme l’absence de fondements théoriques ou intellectuels du théâtre irlandais et il insiste sur la nécessité pour les dramaturges de sa génération de réinventer le théâtre dans son ensemble, dans tous ses aspects, esthétiques et politiques.

9 Gerald Dawe et Clare Wallace, les éditeurs de cet ouvrage, ont eu la bonne idée d’inclure ici l’introduction de Stewart Parker à Lost Belongings, une série en six parties diffusée en 1987 par Thames Television, rappelant ainsi que le dramaturge a également beaucoup écrit pour la télévision. Dans « Dramatis Personae », il affirmait :

I don’t understand how any serious playwright in this day and age can fail to rise to the challenge of it [television]. It is not merely the great popular medium of the time, it is part of the fabric of people’s lives to a degree which is unprecedented; it is not merely the real national state, but a multi-national one to boot.

10 Ses pièces télévisées, dont la plupart demeuraient jusque-là inédites, sont pour la première fois réunies dans un recueil, troisième ouvrage publié à l’occasion de l’anniversaire de sa mort. Television Plays reproduit les scenarii de I’m a Dreamer Montreal (1979), Iris in the Traffic, Ruby in the Rain (1981), Joyce in June (1982), Radio Pictures (1985) Blue Money (1984) écrit à l’origine pour le cinéma et Lost Belongings (1987). Catchpenny Twist, qui fut son premier succès à la télévision n’y figure pas, puisqu’il s’agit de l’adaptation d’une pièce écrite à l’origine pour la scène. Pour les mêmes raisons, n’est pas non plus inclus The Kamikaze Ground Staff Reunion Dinner, pièce écrite pour la radio puis adaptée à la télévision. En revanche, on retrouve I’m a Dreamer, Montreal, qui fut également à l’origine une pièce radiophonique, mais dont le succès de la version télévisée, qui reçut le Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize, justifie pleinement la présence dans ce recueil. Dans son introduction, Clare Wallace souligne le génie de Parker, et la richesse de son théâtre télévisé, et replace ses œuvres dans le contexte des Troubles. Il reste cependant un goût d’inachevé, cet ouvrage étant conçu pour fonctionner en tandem avec un recueil des pièces radiophoniques, édité par Mark Phelan, et dont on attend toujours la publication. D’autant que, si on ne peut que se féliciter de la parution de ces trois ouvrages, la publication d’une monographie consacrée au dramaturge apparaît plus que jamais comme la condition indispensable à la reconnaissance critique de son œuvre.

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NOTES

1. L’adaptation télévisuelle de sa pièce Catchpenny Twist fut récompensée par l’Evening Standard Drama Award de la meilleure pièce télévisuelle en 1977. En 1979, la version télévisée de I’m a Dreamer Montreal, pièce écrite à l’origine pour la radio, fut récompensée par le Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize. La version radiophonique de The Kamikaze Ground Staff Reunion Dinner, pièce qui fut ensuite adaptée pour la télévision, remporta le Giles Cooper Award en 1980. 2. Spokesong fut originellement publiée par Samuel French en 1979 et Catchpenny Twist par Gallery Press en 1980. Nightshade fut publiée par Dublin Co-Op Books en 1980. Enfin, Northern Star, Heavenly Bodies et Pentecost, réunies sous le titre Three Plays for Ireland, avaient fait l’objet d’une première édition par Oberon Books en 1989. Pratt’s Fall n’avait jamais été publiée. Egalement inédites, The Actress and the Bishop et Kingdom Come, pièces plus expérimentales puisqu’il s’agit d’une « lunch-time play » et d’une comédie musicale, n’ont pas été intégrées dans ces deux volumes. 3. Stewart Parker, Dramatis Personae & Other Writings, Gerald Dawe, Maria Johnston, Clare Wallace (eds), Prague, Litteraria Pragensia, 2008. 4. Johan Huizinga, Homo ludens. Essai sur la fonction sociale du jeu, Paris, Gallimard, 1988. 5. Ibid.

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L’Homme à la cape

Bernard Escarbelt

RÉFÉRENCE

James Clarence Mangan, L’Homme à la cape, suivi de Les trente flacons, traduit, préfacé et annoté par Claude Fierobe, Rennes, Terre de brume, 2009, 159 p., ISBN 978-2-84362-405-6, 17€

1 Voici un livre qui incite à la lecture et aux relectures. Il s’agit d’une traduction de deux textes de James Clarence Mangan, eux-mêmes librement traduits, voire adaptés, à partir de – pour le premier – Melmoth réconcilié de Balzac, pour le second La Peau de chagrin, de Balzac encore, lesquels renvoient au Melmoth, l’homme errant, du Révérend Maturin. Le vecteur de publication des deux textes de Mangan ne manque pas non plus d’intérêt puisqu’ils parurent dans le Dublin University Magazine, le premier en novembre 1838, le second en deux parties, en octobre et en décembre de la même année (une petite erreur de date, aisément rectifiée, donne 1938). La note bibliographique invite en plus à se replonger dans les œuvres complètes de Mangan, la prose en particulier, celle- ci rééditée il n’y a pas si longtemps sous la direction de Jacques Chuto, Peter Van de Kamp, Augustine Martin et Ellen Shannon-Mangan. Le pedigree de ce volume de traductions renvoie clairement à la littérature « gothique », fantastique, de la fin du XVIIIe siècle et du début du XIXe, en partie travestie ici par la plume de Mangan. Claude Fierobe, grand connaisseur de Maturin et de son Melmoth, établit, dans l’introduction, la filiation entre les textes successifs, qui se chevauchent sans se recouvrir. Il analyse en particulier les ressorts du fantastique dans les avatars du récit et de la narration, qu’il lie à un questionnement de l’identité dans lequel Mangan aurait trouvé son compte, si l’on suit les éléments biographiques qu’il apporte sur Mangan. Ceci vaut tout particulièrement pour le transfert Mangan/Braunbrock dans L’Homme à la cape, lorsque Braunbrock endosse la cape, dans un récit où l’irrationnel le dispute au fantastique, mais Les trentes flacons ne sont pas en reste de ce côté, ajoutant un grain de burlesque. Tout aussi intéressante est l’analyse du « grotesque » qui, à côté de la délocalisation de l’histoire à Vienne, contribue à la spécificité des deux textes de Mangan. A ceci doit

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encore s’ajouter l’élément traduction – élément double puisqu’il est le fait de Mangan d’une part, et de son traducteur, Claude Fierobe, d’autre part. Pour ce qui est de Mangan, citons Claude Fierobe qui, après avoir souligné les libertés que prend Mangan par rapport à son modèle ajoute: «’Les noirs à jamais les plus profonds’ qu’André Breton se plaisait à trouver chez Maturin ont viré au gris blafard de la modernité selon Balzac. Mangan, en manipulant la rhétorique de l’excès, du dérapage verbal, de la collision saugrenue d’idées étrangères l’une à l’autre, en mêlant le philosophique et le trivial, combat en réalité son anxiété fondamentale et masque par une série d’écrans le moi angoissé d’un narrateur insaisissable. » Quand à la traduction de Claude Fierobe, elle suit un texte marqué historiquement, respecte « les phrases qui n’en finissent pas », qu’il attribue au style « germanique », jongle avec le jeu de mots : il arrive que le texte traduit « frotte » un peu, manière – à l’instar de ce que recommande Antoine Berman – de préserver une certaine étrangeté du texte.

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Tar Éis a Bháis

Clíona Ní Ríordáin

REFERENCES

Máiréad Ní Loinsigh (eag), Tar Éis a Bháis—Aistí ar Sheán Ó Ríordáin, Indreabhán, Cló Iar- Chonnachta, 2008, 122 p., ISBN 978-1-905560-31-8

1 This volume brings together a series of lectures given on RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta to celebrate the life and work of the Irish language poet Seán Ó Ríordáin (1916-77). Along with a stimulating analysis, by Stiofáin Ó Cadhla, on the Rabelesian nature of Ó Ríordáin’s work and his relationship with Béaloideas, and a detailed study of Ó Ríordáin’s best loved poem, “Cúl an Tí”, by Pádraigín Riggs, Tar Éis a Bháis is remarkable for the personal recollections of Seán Ó Ríordáin recorded within its pages. Máirtín Ó Murchú recalls the debates with Ó Ríordáin, the civil servant, as to the colour of the grey minivan Ó Murchú owned: was it to be categorised as “liath” or “glas”? The linguistic spectrum of the colour grey clashed with the translation lists available in the Motor Taxation Office and the civil servant declared that “liath” it was to be. He describes the lunches they ate together in the functional Five Star restaurant on Oliver Plunkett Street and the ecumenical debates that raged on the topic of Vatican II. The Five Star also figures in the account of Ó Ríordáin given by Gearóid Ó Crualaoich in an essay entitled “Aithne, an ea? N’fheadar”. After a disquisition on the nature of the word “aithne” in modern Irish, Ó Crualaoich categorises the seven ways he knew or failed to know Ó Ríordáin. Ó Crualaoich’s account includes his first non-encounter with Ó Ríordáin in the Motor Tax office in 1958, Ó Ríordáin’s absence at Ó Crualaoich’s wedding and a very moving account of his funeral. Ó Crualaoich also points to the neglect that followed the erection of a plaque on the wall of Ó Ríordáin’s house in Iniscarra, comparing the dark weeds that have taken hold of the house to the dark tentacles that the poet fought in both body and soul throughout his life.

2 Seán Ó Coileáin, the author of Ó Ríordáin’s biography, gives an interesting account of Ó Ríordáin’s relationship with Seán Ó Tuama and the peculiar position that arose from his being a poet/critic in Irish Department in UCC. If both Ó Tuama and Ó Ríordáin

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were speaking in two different rooms on the poetry of Ó Ríordáin whose account of the poems would be right?

3 Several authors make reference to the controversy that erupted with regard to the quality of Ó Ríordáin’s Irish following Máire Mhac an tSaoí’s review of Eireaball Spideoige. Seán Ua Súilleabháin parses the genealogy of “na Ríordánaigh Bhreaca” and, having evoked it, stakes the counter claim that the “sean-Ghaelainn” that Ó Ríordáin heard in the Muskerry Gaeltacht was a match for anything spoken in Dún Chaoin. Through the use of the metaphor of a coat worn inside out Liam P Ó Murchú examines the particular use of the Irish language in Ó Ríordáin’s poems; he devotes space to Ó Ríordáin’s invention “go ríordánóinn” and sees in it a link to the verbal dexterity of Dáibhí Ó Bruadair.

4 Alan Titley’s polemical article “An Teanga Eile – Leath Leis” examines the nature of Ó Ríordáin’s relationship with the English language. He also reiterates his claim that literature in Irish language cannot be seen in a post-colonial light as it is a language that has survived colonialism: “Litríocht í litríocht na Gaeilge nár ghéill’ (64). In what follows, Titley examines the whole relationship between Irish language literature and translation through the multiple English language versions of some of Ó Ríordáin’s poems. Titley’s discussion of the translation of the opening verse of Ó Ríordáin’s masterful” Adhlacadh mo Mháthair” illustrates that, for all Ó Ríordáin’s supposed closeness and subordination to the English language, three English language poets still had great difficulty in carrying over the “ríordánachas” of the poem into English. Titley composes a frieze of the lines of poetry that remain with us, as a testament to the way in which Ó Ríordáin enriched the Irish language. They are reason enough for us to embrace the language today and to join with An Suibhneach Meann, in his prefatory poem, in wishing long life to Ó Ríordáin’s art.

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Stepping Stones

Franck Miroux

RÉFÉRENCE

Dennis O’Driscoll, Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney, Londres, Faber & Faber, 2008, xxx + 524 p., ISBN 978-0-571-24252-8, £22,50

1 Les occasions de surprendre deux poètes en pleine conversation sont assez rares pour éveiller la curiosité du lecteur, mais lorsque cette conversation témoigne d’une relation suivie et sincère, la démarche suscite un intérêt encore plus grand.

2 L’ouvrage que propose Dennis O’Driscoll est le fruit de six années d’échanges verbaux et épistolaires avec Seamus Heaney. Il se place dès l’introduction sous le signe de l’originalité en affichant sa volonté de se démarquer des biographies classiques. Il se propose plutôt de mettre en place un véritable dialogue dont l’ambition est de réunir les deux Heaney : le personnage public et la personne privée. Le lecteur appréciera la grande transparence et la clarté des explications offertes en matière d’approche méthodologique (p. VIII-X). Il ne manquera pas au passage de se replonger dans le recueil District and Circle pour constater que, comme le souligne O’Driscoll, la réflexion amorcée au cours de ces entretiens a parfois servi de terreau à l’écriture poétique de Heaney (p. VIII).

3 L’introduction est suivie d’un glossaire sommaire à destination du néophyte en matière de culture irlandaise et nord-irlandaise, puis d’une chronologie remarquablement détaillée et enfin, hormis l’introduction c’est d’ailleurs certainement l’outil le plus intéressant de ces pages liminaires, d’une série de cartes géographiques qui permettent de mieux appréhender les espaces clés de la vie de Heaney et donc de mieux s’orienter dans son œuvre. À cet égard, la troisième carte, qui représente les environs de Bellaghy, s’avère particulièrement utile.

4 Le corps de l’ouvrage à proprement parler s’articule autour de trois axes. Une première partie, intitulée « Bearings », est constituée de deux chapitres. Elle s’attache principalement à évoquer les années de jeunesse qui ont précédé la publication du

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recueil Death of a Naturalist. Le lecteur y trouvera des renseignements à la fois précis et précieux sur l’enfance et l’adolescence de Heaney.

5 La deuxième partie, « On the Books », comprend treize chapitres qui retracent au fil de l’œuvre de Heaney son parcours artistique et personnel de 1966 à 2006. A l’exception de trois d’entre eux, qui s’articulent respectivement autour des années passées à Harvard (ch. 9) et des travaux de traduction et d’écriture critique (ch. 14 & 15), chaque chapitre s’organise autour d’un recueil, deux parfois (ch. 13). Un tel choix structurel aurait pu figer le dialogue dans un commentaire linéaire mais la fluidité du discours est maintenue tandis que le cours de la pensée des deux poètes oscille entre, régression, digression et progression.

6 La dernière partie, intitulée « Coda », consiste en une courte conclusion suivie d’une bibliographie consistante, de notices biographiques qui, fort à propos, viennent éclairer le lecteur sur certaines personnes évoquées au cours des entretiens, pour se terminer par un index qui offre au chercheur un confort de travail non négligeable.

7 Bien entendu, dans la masse des informations le lecteur averti aura parfois un sentiment de redite lorsque son regard croisera une anecdote ou une pensée précédemment formulée au cours d’autres entretiens. Cependant, il percevra vite la manière dont Heaney parvient à examiner la même anecdote sous un angle légèrement différent et lui confère ainsi une valeur nouvelle. L’expérience s’en trouve alors rafraîchie et nous pousse même parfois à reconsidérer la lecture que nous avions faite de tel ou tel poème. Toutefois, le lecteur ne manquera pas d’accorder une attention particulière aux chapitres qui s’intéressent à des aspects moins souvent commentés de l’œuvre de Heaney et qui offrent à cet égard des pistes de réflexion originales (ch. 12, 14, 15). Une seule ombre au tableau, le chapitre 13 met l’eau à la bouche du lecteur en promettant dans son titre de s’intéresser aux deux derniers recueils, Electric Light et District and Circle, mais le laisse sur sa faim puisqu’il se contente de revenir sur la question du politique et du poétique (assez répétitif) pour finir par s’intéresser à Ted Hughes (intéressant mais un peu hors de propos en l’occurrence). Enfin, il faut évoquer les superbes planches photographiques qui participent pleinement au sentiment d’authenticité qui se dégage de ces entretiens.

8 Chacun l’aura donc compris, Stepping Stones est un ouvrage très complet qui revêt une importance essentielle pour quiconque évolue dans le domaine de la littérature anglo- irlandaise et, de manière plus générale, anglophone. Néanmoins, il intéressera aussi le civilisationiste qui, au détour d’une réponse, aura une image extrêmement précise de ce que pouvait être la vie dans la communauté rurale de l’Irlande du nord de l’après- guerre (la précision de la description de la ferme de Mossbawn est remarquable, ch. 1) ou qui trouvera matière à réfléchir sur les problèmes de communautarisme et de violence qui ont marqué l’histoire du Nord.

9 C’est un ouvrage à lire pour le plaisir de laisser le verbe fluide et limpide de Heaney s’écouler à notre oreille, pour la pertinence et la grande finesse de certaines questions posées par O’Driscoll auxquelles Heaney répond souvent avec humour et avec la simplicité et la franchise qui caractérisent l’homme de soixante-dix ans qu’il est devenu. Stepping Stones est une pierre… précieuse, une mine de renseignements à inscrire à la liste des cadeaux dont auront bénéficié les lecteurs de Heaney à l’occasion de son soixante-dixième anniversaire. Le livre que nous offre O’Driscoll restera sans aucun doute un ouvrage de référence en matière de réflexion sur la construction et le cheminement personnel et intellectuel de l’artiste.

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Seamus Heaney

Clíona Ní Ríordáin

REFERENCES

Rand Brandes & Michael J. Durkan (eds.), Seamus Heaney A Bibliography 1959-2003, London, Faber, 2008, p. 494, ISBN 978-0-571-23439-4

1 Seamus Heaney scholars have greeted the publication of this volume with a unanimous cry of “At last”! This comprehensive bibliography is the work of two scholars, Michael J Durkan, the author of the first Heaney bibliography in 1986, and Rand Brandes. They had already collaborated on the valuable Seamus Heaney a Reference Guide in 1996. On Durkan’s death, in the same year, Brandes pursued this mammoth task alone. The book is compiled according to the principles of modern bibliography and has received the assistance of the poet himself. It includes comprehensive indexes (both title names and a general index). It is divided into eight sections.

2 Academics will delight in the listing of subsection AA which deals with broadsides and cards. As well as the titles of the works themselves, the accompanying notes are a mine of information. For instance, we read on page 129 that the 1982 Christmas card, “Sweeney and the Saint”, was subsequently published with revisions in Sweeney Astray. The bibliophiles amongst us will savour descriptions such as those on page 159 of a poem published for Marie Heaney’s 60th birthday entitled “The Clothes Shrine”: “Printed in black and red on cream wove paper, bottom edges untrimmed; laid in dark greyish-yellow tri-fold wrappers with the title printed in black outline letters on front wrapper”. At such luxurious detail we can only bow down in homage! Indispensible also is the section devoted to “Interviews with Seamus Heaney”. Dennis O’Driscoll repeats in the opening pages of Stepping Stones Ian Hamilton’s statement that Heaney can be regarded as “the most over-interviewed of living poets”. The present volume numbers at 94 the interviews accorded until 2002. And no doubt, despite the existence of Stepping Stones, we will be determined to track down the elusive one we may have missed out on, such as “Poet aims at Irish War” published in the Minneapolis Star in March 1981 (p. 426).

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3 Having enjoyed the wonderful fare provided by Durkan and Brandes, it may seem ungracious to end this review with the Twist-like: “Please sir may I have some more?”, but five years lie between the publication and the terminal date of the bibliography and we would love to read about what lies between.

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Palabras Extremas: Escritoras Gallegas e Irlandesas de Hoy Words from Afar: Galician and Irish Women Writers Today

Katharina Walter

REFERENCES

Palacios González Manuela, and Helena González Fernández, (eds). Palabras Extremas: Escritoras Gallegas e Irlandesas de Hoy (Words from Afar: Galician and Irish Women Writers Today), La Coruna, University Institute of Research in Irish Studies, 2008, 192 p., ISBN 978-84-9745-198-7

1 This collection of articles, essays and interviews maps out the field of comparative studies between contemporary Galician and Irish women’s poetry, whereby in the past, according to the editors, Galician writers have often sought inspiration from their Irish fellows, while this interest has seldom been reciprocated. And indeed the various contributions to this volume of essays show that both bodies of poetry display many shared concerns, opening up new perspectives on concepts like ‘femininity’ and ‘female embodiment’, terms like ‘literature’ and ‘nation’, as well as foregrounding an interest in the natural world and its preservation.

2 Part I of this collection, “Naturaleza, Lenguaje y Mito” (“Nature, Language and Myth”), explores the negotiation of individual and collective identities through a renovation of the poetic devices available for the writing of land- and cityscapes, through a breach with the conventions of the poetic genre itself, as well as through a critical engagement with both native and foreign mythologies. Special emphasis is placed on attempts at remodelling the existent iconic representations of femininity within the discourses of mythology, nationalism and religion in both cultures, which in several contributions are shown to be contested for creating idealized, hypostasized images of womanhood that exclude the lived experience of female embodiment with its contingencies and continuous transformations. María Xesús Nogueira Pereira demonstrates that realistic,

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rather than idealized portrayals of various topographies predominate in the works of a wide range of Galician women poets published since the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. Manuela Palacios González shows that a similar endeavour is present in contemporary Irish women’s poetry, which renovates representations of women in relation to the natural world, bestowing agency on the conventionally passive female figures associated, for instance, with the traditional woman-as-nation trope. Helena González Fernández and Laura María Lojo Rodríguez analyze the ways in which Galician and Irish women poets renew language to reconceptualise elements of female identity, while María Xesús Lama López and Luz Mar González Arias focus on how contemporary Galician and Irish women’s poetry redress elements of mythology, especially with regard to its female archetypes.

3 Part II of Palabras Extremas, “Con Voz Propia: Ensayos y Entrevistas” (“In Their Own Voices: Essays and Interviews”), provides a forum for Galician and Irish women poets to offer their thoughts on current cultural developments in their respective contexts, as well as on questions of literary norms and establishment. This section includes essays by the Galician María do Cebreiro and her Irish fellow poet Anne Le Marquand Hartigan, as well as interviews with Chus Pato, Ana Romaní, Mary O’Donnell and Celia de Fréine, which raise many similar problems outside the confines of the more conventionally academic analysis offered in the first section of the book.

4 Together the contributions in Palabras Extremas point to the vast and varied possibilities of comparison between Galician and Irish women’s writing today, showing that both bodies of work share a concern with rewriting the traditions of portraying territory, myth, and female embodiment, both independently and in contexts where these domains intersect. Palabras Extremas has opened up an exciting new field of comparative analysis, and it can be hoped that the dialogue this collection has initiated will be extended and developed so as to strengthen the ties formed between these two rich and diverse cultures, and to enable more direct and integrated modes of communication between them.

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Seamus Heaney and the Emblems of Hope

Jessica Stephens

RÉFÉRENCE

Karen Marguerite Moloney, Seamus Heaney and the Emblems of Hope, Columbia, University of Missouri Press, 2007, 249 pp., ISBN 978-0-8262-1744-8

1 Dans cet ouvrage paru en 2007, la poétesse Karen Marguerite Moloney s’intéresse à la tradition du « mariage sacré » : une déesse tellurique s’unit à un consort masculin et, par là même, lui octroie le droit de régner sur une terre et d’accéder au statut de roi à part entière. Des références au hieros gamos (« mariage sacré ») apparaissent déjà dans la littérature grecque et indienne, mais perdurent dans la littérature celte et plus précisément irlandaise. Si Karen Maloney évoque brièvement les traces historiques de ce rituel dont il est question dans un récit irlandais datant de 1187, elle examine les transformations du mythe au fil des siècles : en s’appuyant sur deux ouvrages – The Golden Bough de James Frazer et The White Goddess de Robert Graves –, elle balaye le champ de la littérature irlandaise. Des contes anciens relatent la transformation surnaturelle d’une vieille femme hideuse – la cailleach – en jeune femme à la beauté radieuse lorsque celle-ci est embrassée par un homme courtois qui, lui, reçoit un royaume en échange (« Niall of the Nine Hostages » dans The Adventures of the Sons of Eochaid Muigmedon). Dans Buile Suibhne, le roi d’une province est transformé en oiseau ; il erre, à moitié fou, dans la nature irlandaise, tel Dionysos aux prises avec la Déesse… qui est aussi la Muse. Les événements historiques du XVIIe et du XVIIIe siècles modifient progressivement la perception du mythe. Au XVIIIe siècle, dans les poèmes de vision, les aislingí, la vieille femme caméléon est remplacée par une ‘femme du ciel’ éblouissante, la spéirbhean dont le compagnon s’est absenté. Ce personnage féminin canalise des émotions diverses, des préoccupations relevant du domaine politique, privé ou social ; les registres littéraires sont variés, comme dans The Midnight Court, poème comique écrit par Brian Merriman. Enfin Karen Moloney se penche sur la perception du

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« mariage sacré » et de la Déesse aux XIXe et XXe siècles – à travers certaines œuvres de Yeats, Joyce et Austin Clarke mais aussi d’écrivains très contemporains – hommes ou femmes ; Thomas Kinsella, par exemple, voit dans sa confrontation avec la Déesse – sous les traits de la spéirbhean ou bien de la cailleach – une étape dans l’acceptation de son ombre menant à une forme de régénération psychique. Eavan Boland, quant à elle, lie ce mythe à la situation actuelle de la femme irlandaise. Un peu comme Nuala Ní Dhómhnaill qui déplore la distinction faite entre l’image d’une femme désincarnée, associée à des principes abstraits – la liberté et la justice – et la situation bien réelle et quotidienne des femmes irlandaises.

2 Après cette vue d’ensemble, Moloney se tourne vers la poésie de Heaney à travers un choix de poèmes qu’elle étudie de manière très détaillée : les thèmes évoqués plus haut transparaissent mais sont réinterprétés et retravaillés. Plus que tout autre toutefois, Heaney explore la dimension politique de ce mythe. Dans « Ocean’s Love to Ireland », « The Guttural Muse », « Come to the Bower », mais aussi « Bone Dreams » et « A Drink of Water », Heaney se penche sur le lien qui existe entre le roi et l’état du royaume qu’il gouverne, imagine une spéirbhean moins passive, explore la notion de transformation personnelle, associe l’eau et la déesse, se penche sur les valeurs véhiculées par la femme…

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Ciaran Carson

Elisabeth Delattre

RÉFÉRENCE

Elmer Kennedy-Andrews (ed.), Ciaran Carson: Critical Essays, Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2009, 284 p., ISBN 978-1-84682-162-2

1 Comme l’indique Elmer Kennedy-Andrews dans la préface de ce recueil d’articles critiques consacrés à l’écrivain nord-irlandais, il s’agit de la première étude d’envergure, dont la publication coïncide avec le soixantième anniversaire de Ciaran Carson. À l’origine de cet ouvrage, un symposium qui s’était tenu à l’université de Coleraine en 2002 avait réuni sept communications retranscrites ici, auxquelles le professeur Kennedy-Andrews a ajouté six autres articles, afin de tenir compte des œuvres, et non des moindres, que Carson a publiées depuis. Une « conversation », en fait une correspondance électronique entre l’éditeur et l’écrivain, précède ces treize articles, conversation qui reprend sans doute une bonne partie des remarques formulées par Carson dans les nombreux entretiens qu’il a accordés au fil des ans, mais qui fournit toutefois des renseignements utiles au lecteur néophyte et permet d’introduire les œuvres analysées dans les études qui suivent.

2 La spécificité de Carson, à la fois prosateur et poète, est mise en lumière avec précision et pertinence, même si on trouve inévitablement des redites d’un article à l’autre. La prosodie de Carson, qui est à la fois traditionnelle et très novatrice, est examinée en détail par Peter Denman. Cet article précède de manière judicieuse celui de David Wheatley consacrée à Breaking News, publié en 2003 et qui marque un nouveau départ, dans l’art du poète. Le style dépouillé, voire elliptique de certains des poèmes de la première partie, est une façon pour le poète d’affronter la dureté du monde qui l’entoure. Breaking News est aussi étudié dans l’article de Michael McAteer qui y voit, à juste titre, une forme d’écriture dans lequel « word and object coalesce ». Plusieurs articles, ceux de John Goodby, de Eamonn Hughes, de Stan Smith, évoquent le thème de la ville, Belfast en l’occurrence, l’importance de la notion de lieu, d’espace, dans les perspectives postmodernistes du labyrinthe, de la cartographie, de la déconstruction,

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cette « ambilocation » dont parle Stan Smith. Walter Benjamin, Michael de Certeau sont convoqués à l’appui des démonstrations. Le « postmodernisme » de Carson, au sens de l’hybridité, de la suppression de la démarcation entre « le sophistiqué » et « le primitif », constitue le sujet d’un article de Tim Hancock. Quant à la place littéraire de Carson, les « influences » qui vont de Keats aux symbolistes français en passant par Borges, ou les poètes américains comme C. K. Williams, William Carlos Williams, Robert Frost, sans oublier les traditions poétiques et musicales irlandaises, ainsi que les traductions publiées par Carson, trois autres articles par Patricia Horton, Frank Sewell et Ciaran O’Neill leur sont consacrés. Le caractère subversif de l’écriture carsonienne est analysé par le biais d’une œuvre en prose Fishing for Amber, dans l’article de Jerzy Jarniewicz, lequel explique aussi pourquoi son propre patronyme y est utilisé par Carson. Seamus Heaney ne saurait être oublié, et l’article d’Elmer Kennedy-Andrews nous livre une étude comparative et contrastive sur « l’art de se perdre ». Après avoir considéré des ouvrages en prose comme The Star Factory, Shamrock Tea, ou encore For All We Know, publié en 2008 et défini comme « his novel-poem », à la lumière de Luis Borges, Elmer Kennedy-Andrews analyse brièvement quelques poèmes de Seamus Heaney avant de donner ce jugement sur les deux écrivains : « In these modes, Heaney loses himself to find himself as a transcendent subject, while Carson loses himself to find himself as a perpetually nomadic author. » Dans un souci d’exhaustivité, toute l’œuvre de Carson est passée en revue, même celle non encore publiée, ainsi le dernier article intitulé « Acoustic perfume » qu’Alan Gillis consacre à deux ouvrages en prose, The Pen Friend, à paraître en septembre 2009, et un inédit au titre énigmatique : X+Y=K.

3 Cet ouvrage, complété par un index, rend justice à une œuvre dont la complexité, l’érudition et la richesse peuvent parfois surprendre, dérouter ou intimider le lecteur ou la critique. On pourra regretter l’absence d’une bibliographie consacrée non seulement aux différentes publications et éditions de l’œuvre carsonienne, mais aussi aux nombreux articles publiés sur cet écrivain nord-irlandais dont le talent multiple et reconnu est en constante évolution.

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Northern Irish Literature

Martine Pelletier

RÉFÉRENCE

Michael Parker, Northern Irish Literature: The Imprint of History. Vol I 1956-1975, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007, 357 p, ISBN 978-0-333-60415-1 ; Vol II 1975-2006 Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007, 334 p, ISBN 978-0-230-55305-7

1 Voila longtemps que ce que Conor Cruise O’Brien a appelé dans une formule mémorable et souvent citée, « the unhealthy intersection », entre littérature et politique, un carrefour ou une zone de contact qui ne cesse de fasciner, d’inquiéter et d’inspirer écrivains et critiques. Le bel ouvrage en deux volumes de Michael Parker, dédié à Philip Hobsbawm, offre une analyse très dense et tout à fait passionnante de la relation entre l’évolution de la situation politique, sociale et économique en Irlande du Nord, de 1956 à 2006 et la production littéraire des auteurs issus de cette région sur la même période. Comme l’auteur l’explique en introduction, « each of the finest Northern Irish literary texts occupies a space beyond, but also within, a culture at a particular juncture in its history. Northern Irish writing strives to transcend the material and ideological conditions which shaped it, but finds itself pulled back to and by specific moments, places and names ». L’ambition de ce travail remarquable est de lier une analyse détaillée, précise du contexte politique et culturel et l’étude plus ou moins approfondie de textes clés issus de ce contexte mouvant et complexe.

2 Une fois posé le principe de la nécessaire prise en compte du contexte pour mieux lire le texte – ce que d’aucuns pourraient bien sûr discuter – l’étude progresse selon un cadre chronologique. Parker divise les quelque quatre décennies qui l’intéressent en sept périodes. La première, 1956-1965, lui permet d’interroger un moment historique et littéraire parfois négligé car antérieur au commencement des Troubles et néanmoins capital ; Thompson, Leitch et Montague sont les auteurs retenus pour évoquer les tensions sous-jacentes de ces années où un sectarisme bien réel opérait avec la bénédiction des institutions. L’émergence du mouvement pour les droits civiques (1966-69) est accompagnée par la poésie de Heaney, Hewitt et Simmons. L’explosion de

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violence et l’intense polarisation d’une société au bord de la guerre civile sont associées à la pièce The Flats de John Boyd et à poésie brutale de Padraic Fiacc avant que Parker ouvre le champ à d’autres voix poétiques, celles de Mahon, Muldoon, Hewitt et du Heaney de Wintering Out. Pour 1972-75, Brian Friel et Heaney à nouveau, sont privilégiés pour leur traitement indirect de Bloody Sunday et des conséquences de cette tragédie. Les textes critiques de Conor Cruise O’Brien et de Seamus Deane témoignent de l’émergence d’analyses critiques incisives et polémiques en cette période particulièrement sombre et sanglante.

3 Les trois chapitres du second volume couvrent des périodes plus vastes, 1975-86, 1987-1995, 1995-2006 et analysent des œuvres nombreuses et variées, prose, poésie, théâtre sans oublier là aussi quelques textes critiques majeurs. On notera l’importance bienvenue accordée à la fiction produite par des femmes écrivains comme Una Woods, Anne Devlin et Deirdre Madden, à côté des incontournables Cal de McLaverty ou, sur le mode dramatique, Translations de Brian Friel. Les sélections de textes pour la période la plus récente témoignent d’une connaissance excellente de ce qui s’écrit et se publie en Irlande du Nord et d’un souci d’équilibrer les genres et les approches tant formelles que plus politiques.

4 Tout au long des quelque cinq cents pages de texte, Michael Parker démontre une connaissance impressionnante et détaillée de l’histoire de la période, un grand sens pédagogique et un souci de ne pas schématiser ou simplifier ; parallèlement, on appréciera la finesse de ses micro lectures de textes bien choisis, même si, à l’évidence, on pourra toujours estimer que certains choix se discutent, soit parce que des textes canoniques ne reçoivent pas nécessairement un éclairage nouveau, soit au contraire parce d’autres textes apparaissent mineurs et semblent retenus plus pour ce qu’ils permettent de dire que sur leurs qualités intrinsèques . Pour ma part, je n’ai qu’un regret, l’absence de David Park et ce en dépit tant de la qualité de ses écrits que de leur pertinence par rapport à la problématique retenue. Au fil de ces lectures approfondies Michael Parker engage, souvent mais pas systématiquement, le dialogue avec d’autres critiques, manifestant là aussi une connaissance très fine non seulement de la littérature de la période mais de ses commentateurs et enjeux critiques.

5 Michael Parker a soin d’inclure à la fin de chaque volume une chronologie détaillée des évènements mettant en regard la situation en Irlande, Nord et Sud et en Grande Bretagne, les événements à l’échelle mondiale et la vie artistique et culturelle. Les notes sont nombreuses, la bibliographie est soigneusement sélectionnée, d’autres annexes comme la liste des acronymes utilisés ou des plans de ville confirment tant la qualité du travail que le souci de rendre Northern Irish Literature 1956-2006: The Imprint of History passionnant pour les spécialistes mais néanmoins accessible à un large public.

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Flann O’Brien

Flore Coulouma

REFERENCES

Keith Hopper, Flann O’Brien: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Post-Modernist, Second edition, Cork, Cork University Press, 2009, 290 p., ISBN 978-1-85918-447-9

1 The second edition of this thorough study of Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman essentially updates the 1995 edition with additions rather than changes to Keith Hopper’s initial argument. The Third Policeman, Hopper argues, is O’Brien’s masterpiece, and its status as a meta-fiction defines O’Brien as a post-modernist author.

2 Hopper starts with a contextual reminder of O’Brien’s difficult position as a writer, in between Yeats’s Celtic Twilight and the subsequent Irish naturalist tradition, on the one hand, and the inhibiting shadow of Joyce on the other hand. The third and fourth chapters of the book deal with character building and frame-breaking strategies as devices in the post-modern metafictional novels of O’Brien. Hopper uses the concept of metalepsis throughout his book to refer to the multiple shifts operated at all levels in O’Brien’s writing: embedded narratives, displaced characters, self-conscious narrators and meta-fictional comments, and finally at the level of language itself.

3 Hopper concentrates on The Third Policeman as a menippean satire of Cartesian rationalism, arguing that the use of mock paratext (the so-called footnotes) and the chaotic background of the narrative (distorted space-time continuum, posthumous narration, etc.) “pursue the poetics of nonsense as a means to a satirical end”. For Hopper, the target here is Cartesian rationalism and O’Brien’s satirical deconstruction of rationalist thought partakes of early post-modernism.

4 There is added material in Hopper’s discussion of gender and machism in O’Brien’s work, where he points out what he calls O’Brien’s “homosocial” references (women do not feature in his stories and parodic focus is placed on male camaraderie between characters). However, this discussion is inconclusive: was O’Brien criticizing the Irish censorship and conservatism of his time or was he part of it too? This debate seems

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slightly irrelevant to Hopper’s purpose, but it sheds light on O’Brien’s ambiguity as a satirist.

5 Although Hopper offers an overview of O’Brien’s other novels, and mentions his plays and Irish Times chronicles, his book is mostly dedicated to The Third Policeman. It offers an exhaustive reading of the criticism as well as a thorough and convincing interpretation of the novel itself, which had not been done in published form before. However, by focusing exclusively on The Third Policeman, Hopper completely leaves out O’Brien’s chronicles, which he only mentions as biographical or historical documents, thus disregarding their intrinsic literary value. He barely alludes to O’Brien’s bilingualism and thus underplays the importance of An Béal Bocht as a tribute to Gaeltacht autobiographies such as Tomás Ó Criomhthain’s The Islandman. Including O’Brien’s Irish writings would have benefited the study in not reducing Flann O’Brien to his two most famous novels.

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Homo Famelicus

Martine Pelletier

RÉFÉRENCE

Alexandra Poulain, Homo Famelicus. Le Théâtre de Tom Murphy. Caen, Presses Universitaires de Caen, 2008, 242 p., ISBN 978-2-84133-309-7, 18 €

1 Tom Murphy, en quelque cinquante ans, a écrit plus de vingt pièces originales et adaptations. Pourtant, depuis la parution de la magistrale étude de Fintan O’Toole The Politics of Magic en 1987, année où un numéro spécial de l’Irish University Review lui était également consacré, et en dépit d’un regain d’intérêt pour son œuvre manifesté par la saison Murphy à l’Abbey en 2001 et la conférence internationale organisée en parallèle à cette programmation artistique par Nicholas Grene (dont les actes ont été publiés par Carysfort Press sous le titre Talking about Tom Murphy en 2002), plus de vingt ans s’étaient écoulés sans qu’aucune nouvelle monographie ne paraisse. Cette omission aussi préjudiciable qu’incompréhensible vient d’être très heureusement corrigée par l’ouvrage d’Alexandra Poulain, Homo famelicus : Le Théâtre de Tom Murphy aux Presses Universitaires de Caen.

2 Homo famelicus – le titre est admirablement bien choisi – est structuré en cinq parties, chacune proposant l’étude d’un groupe de pièces liées par des proximités chronologiques et/ou thématiques. Un chapitre fait exception, le deuxième, entièrement consacré à Famine qu’Alexandra Poulain voit comme une œuvre-clé qui permet de lire et comprendre les bases de la critique complexe qu’offre le théâtre de Murphy de la modernité irlandaise. Alexandra Poulain démontre que la force de l’écriture de Murphy vient de ses obsessions : le dramaturge revient encore et encore à la même histoire, une histoire de départ, de parcours, de retour, rêvé, impossible car la cruelle nécessité impose d’accepter que le sort du héros errant est cet impossible retour auquel l’homme est condamné dans un monde privé de Dieu, du sens, d’un réel foyer.

3 Alexandra Poulain offre ici une belle lecture, cohérente et convaincante, du théâtre de Murphy, ainsi que de nombreuses analyses pleines d’empathie et de finesse de ces textes complexes, souvent sombres et déroutants. Elle met à jour des liens entre les

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textes, des motifs récurrents et des préoccupations permanentes, tant formels que thématiques. On peut regretter que peu d’attention soit accordée à la réception, tant publique que critique des pièces, mais ce petit regret ne saurait entacher la grande réussite d’un livre qui parvient à concilier une lecture fine des textes et une prise en compte du contexte socio-culturel de l’œuvre. Bien que plusieurs de ses pièces aient été jouées en Angleterre (la plus récente, The Alice Trilogy a eu sa première au Royal Court à Londres en 2005), Tom Murphy n’a pas obtenu de réelle reconnaissance de son théâtre à l’international et il est particulièrement bienvenu que ce soit une universitaire française qui signale ici, à travers cette étude, la place qui devrait être celle de Murphy sur la scène internationale. On ne peut qu’espérer que ce travail, paru dans la collection dirigée par Thierry Dubost, sera un jour prochain disponible en anglais.

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Sir Walter Ralegh in Ireland

Catherine Maignant

RÉFÉRENCE

Sir John Pope Hennessy (Thomas Herron ed.), Sir Walter Ralegh in Ireland, Dublin, UCD Press (Classics of Irish History), (1883) 2009, 153 p., ISBN 978-I-906350-18-8

1 Il convient de saluer la réédition de ce classique des écrits historiques sur l’Irlande, qui présente un double intérêt, informatif et historiographique. Ecrivant à la fin du dix- neuvième siècle, Sir John Pope Hennessy se fixait pour objectif de compléter les travaux des historiens anglais en mettant en avant la contribution de Sir Walter Raleigh à la politique irlandaise de la reine Elisabeth. Il ne propose donc ni une biographie du personnage, ni un panorama de son époque, et il n’hésite pas à citer abondamment les travaux de ses prédécesseurs. En revanche, il fait en sorte de combler les manques ou de corriger des inexactitudes en s’inspirant d’une documentation jusqu’alors inexploitée, dont une bonne partie figure d’ailleurs en annexe de l’ouvrage. À peu près la moitié de Sir Walter Ralegh in Ireland se compose en effet d’un recueil de textes de première main, lettres ou autres écrits, tout à fait passionnants en eux-mêmes, qui viennent appuyer la démonstration de l’auteur.

2 Le tableau que Sir John Pope Hennessy brosse de Sir Walter Raleigh est globalement peu flatteur. Il s’attache à prouver la responsabilité de ce favori d’Elisabeth Ire dans les choix répressifs de la souveraine en matière de gestion de la question irlandaise. Le massacre de Smerwick en 1580, les expulsions brutales et les transferts de population dans le Munster, la stratégie consistant à assassiner les chefs irlandais, ou encore le refus de toute politique conciliatrice au plus haut niveau, lui sont très directement attribués. Bien que le point de vue de Pope Hennessy sur ces actions soit clairement celui d’un Irlandais catholique, les mérites de leur auteur sont toutefois systématiquement mis en avant dans un contexte colonial qui fait de Raleigh un héros national anglais, finalement injustement exécuté sur les ordres de Jacques Ier. La fascination de l’auteur pour son objet d’étude est palpable, et on le sent partagé entre la répulsion et l’admiration.

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3 Dans son excellente et très éclairante introduction, Thomas Herron insiste sur la nature quasi « schizophrène » (p. XXII) de la passion de John Pope Hennessy pour Raleigh. Premier catholique irlandais élu à Westminster au titre du parti conservateur, grand admirateur de Disraeli, Hennessy s’est également illustré dans différents postes de gouverneurs, entre autres à Bornéo, aux Bahamas, et à Hong Kong. Il a donc soutenu l’impérialisme britannique et vécu ce dont Raleigh, en son temps, fit l’expérience aux dépens de l’Irlande. Il s’identifie toutefois aux Irlandais dépossédés et déconsidérés, et s’indigne de les voir traités en barbares. S’étant porté acquéreur de la propriété de Sir Walter Raleigh à Youghal, Hennessy a vécu et travaillé dans sa maison, hanté par sa présence et pour ainsi dire dans son ombre pendant de nombreuses années.

4 D’un point de vue historiographique, son ouvrage appartient pourtant bien à son époque. Il reflète les préoccupations nationalistes de son temps et inscrit nettement l’écriture de l’histoire dans la perspective de la construction du présent. Sa lecture sera utile à différents publics d’aujourd’hui, chercheurs en histoire du seizième siècle, du dix-neuvième siècle ou en historiographie de l’Irlande.

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Ireland’s Misfortune

Nathalie Sebbane

RÉFÉRENCE

Elisabeth Kehoe, Ireland’s Misfortune: The Turbulent Life of Kitty O’Shea, London, Atlantic Books, 2008, 586 p., ISBN 978-1-84354-561-3

1 L’ouvrage d’Elisabeth Kehoe est la quatrième monographie sur Katherine O’Shea, la première datant de 1975 et la plus récente de 2005. Kehoe propose un travail historique intéressant, même si quelquefois hésitant, et une analyse du rôle politique et public joué par une femme qui n’est malheureusement connue que pour avoir brisé les rêves d’indépendance de toute une génération en entraînant la chute de l’une des figures politiques les plus charismatiques de l’histoire du pays.

2 L’ouvrage, composé de vingt chapitres, est très riche et très dense mais la lecture fluide et souvent passionnante.

3 Après cinq chapitres introductifs dans lesquels Kehoe passe en revue les enfances respectives de Katherine Wood, William O’Shea et Charles Stewart Parnell, elle entre au cœur de l’histoire irlandaise dans les chapitres 6 à 9, en décrivant l’ascension politique de Parnell, son engagement dans la Land League, son emprisonnement et sa libération.

4 Les chapitres 10 à 15 dévoilent une Katie O’Shea inconnue. En effet, l’on y apprend qu’elle a activement participé à la vie politique de son pays, sortant ainsi, stricto sensu, de la sphère privée à laquelle étaient reléguées la plupart des femmes de sa génération, pour entrer dans la sphère publique. Katherine était une femme intelligente, cultivée et qui avait de nombreuses relations. Elle est parvenue à promouvoir la carrière politique de son mari à de nombreuses reprises. Mais surtout, encouragée par son amant, elle a intercédé auprès du Premier Ministre Gladstone lors des multiples négociations sur le Home Rule. Kehoe explique, à juste titre, que ce sont davantage les révélations entourant la participation politique de Katie que celles concernant sa liaison avec Parnell qui précipitèrent la chute du « roi sans couronne d’Irlande ». Il était, en effet, inadmissible qu’une femme, adultère de surcroît, pût jouer un rôle aussi important dans des

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négociations aussi cruciales. En outre, l’existence de la liaison entre Katie et Parnell, qui dura plus de 10 ans, ne pouvait être restée secrète, et le capitaine O’Shea ne pouvait ignorer que le leader irlandais habitait sous son propre toit en son absence. Les deux époux fonctionnaient sur la base d’un accord tacite qui convenait parfaitement à O’Shea puisqu’il dépendait financièrement de sa femme. Lorsque la tante bienfaitrice de Katie meurt et que Katie est déclaré seule héritière, O’Shea demande le divorce en citant Parnell comme co-défenseur.

5 Les chapitres 16 à 18 sont consacrés à ce tournant dans la vie de Katie. Les deux années qui suivent sont douloureuses pour les deux amants. Parnell se défend mal et refuse de renoncer à ses responsabilités politiques. Son aura et son image sont irrémédiablement salies et sa santé se dégrade. Les espoirs d’accéder au Home Rule s’évanouissent. Le divorce est finalement prononcé et Katie et Parnell se marient ; le décès de Parnell survient trois semaines plus tard.

6 Les deux derniers chapitres de l’ouvrage sont consacrés à la vie de Katie après le décès de Parnell et notamment à sa situation financière précaire et à la publication de ses mémoires. À cet effet, on peut déplorer que l’historienne termine un ouvrage de cette qualité de manière un peu légère et avec un certain manque de profondeur historique. De même, il aurait été judicieux d’expliquer pourquoi, alors que, dès l’incipit, elle explique que seuls les détracteurs les plus virulents de Katie l’ont jamais appelée « Kitty », Kehoe choisit d’utiliser ce nom dans le titre de son ouvrage.

7 Cependant, l’ouvrage soulève la question cruciale des sources, dans la mesure où les mémoires de Katie – source primaire privilégiée de l’ouvrage – sont sujettes à caution puisque Katie a choisi de publier exclusivement des extraits des lettres de Parnell et non celles qu’elle-même lui a adressées. À ce titre, il est difficile de vérifier la véracité de ses dires et nombre d’historiens, spécialistes de Parnell, l’accusent d’avoir altéré la vérité. En outre, il semblerait que Katie ait décidé de publier cet ouvrage pour des raisons financières.

8 Il n’en demeure pas moins que le livre est une analyse fine et bien documentée d’une page de l’histoire irlandaise. Même si elle hésite souvent entre romance et histoire, et même si l’absence de sources fiables laisse de nombreuses questions sans réponse, Kehoe s’attache à réhabiliter une femme qui a indéniablement joué un rôle considérable dans le combat politique d’un grand leader nationaliste.

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The Impact of the 1916 Rising Among the Nations

Ronan Barré

RÉFÉRENCE

Ruán O’Donnell (ed.), The Impact of the 1916 Rising Among the Nations, Dublin, Irish Academy Press, 2008, 288 p., ISBN, 978-0-7165-2965-1

1 Le titre de cet ouvrage est en partie tiré d’une citation de Robert Emmet qui proclamait en 1803 son désir de voir l’Irlande prendre sa place « parmi les nations », une expression reprise intégralement dans la Proclamation de 1916 (p. XIII). Les auteurs de ce livre dirigé par Ruán O’Donnell ne s’emploient cependant pas à démontrer que le soulèvement de Pâques 1916 a atteint cet objectif, préférant examiner, avec force détails et notes de bas de page, plusieurs aspects plus ou moins étudiés de l’insurrection et remettant en cause certaines idées reçues fréquemment associées à ce fait historique. Le soulèvement de Pâques est ainsi analysé dans sa dimension internationale, que ce soit la politique de neutralité adoptée par l’administration Wilson (Bernadette Whelan), la couverture de la rébellion par la presse française (Ian McKeane), la participation largement ignorée de volontaires d’origine écossaise au soulèvement (Máirtín Seán Ó Catháin), les positions plutôt favorables prises par les communautés d’Irlandais catholiques en Australie et en Nouvelle Zélande (Rory Sweetman) ou encore l’absence de réactions de la gauche britannique qui traduit pour partie une solidarité nationale forcée en temps de guerre (David Granville). D’autres articles se penchent sur les aspects sociaux, politiques et idéologiques qui entourent l’insurrection de 1916, que ce soit la réhabilitation de Pearse comme étant un érudit remarquable, à la fois fin connaisseur de la culture gaélique et de l’histoire nationaliste irlandaise (Róisín Ní Ghairbhí), la décision de James Connolly de rejoindre Pearse resituée dans un contexte plus large, celui de la Première guerre mondiale et de l’internationale socialiste (Priscilla Metscher), la remise en cause de certains mythes entourant le soulèvement de Pâques 1916 qui aurait été l’affaire d’exaltés sans stratégie

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militaire dont la défaite aurait été raillée par la population dublinoise (Peter Beresford Ellis), les répercussions de la division du mouvement des Volontaires en 1914, notamment à Limerick (John O’Callaghan), les différences signifiantes, en termes de classes sociales et de sexe, existant entre les Volontaires et l’« Irish Citizen Army » (ICA) (Ann Matthews), la critique de critiques adressées au film The Wind that Shakes the Barley (Brian P. Murphy) ou la non exploitation du 50e anniversaire du soulèvement de Pâques par le mouvement républicain (Matt Treacy). En appendice se trouvent la Proclamation de 1916, l’article de Desmond Greaves intitulé « 1916 as History. The Myth of the Blood Sacrifice » et la liste des membres de l’ICA.

2 Ruán O’Donnell propose au final un recueil quelque peu disparate d’articles dont le mérite principal est d’apporter un éclairage nouveau sur certains aspects du soulèvement de Pâques 1916 tout en s’inscrivant en faux contre un discours révisionniste tenu par certains historiens.

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L’ordre d’Orange en Ulster

Philippe Cauvet

RÉFÉRENCE

Anne-Nicolle Blaya, L’ordre d’Orange en Ulster : Commémorations d’une histoire protestante, L’Harmattan, 2009, 558 p., ISBN 978-2-296-07988-5, 45 €

1 Au seul nombre de pages de ce livre, il apparaît d’emblée que l’ambition de son auteur était de produire une étude exhaustive sur l’Ordre d’Orange. L’objectif est clairement atteint : en sept parties, elle retrace l’histoire de la communauté protestante nord- irlandaise depuis 1641 jusqu’aux évolutions les plus récentes, suite aux accords de paix de 1998, en se concentrant plus particulièrement sur les rituels commémoratifs orchestrés par l’Ordre d’Orange ou ses associations sœurs. Il s’agit là du premier livre en langue française sur ce thème. Au croisement de différentes disciplines – la sociologie, l’histoire, l’anthropologie, la science politique – l’ouvrage apporte un éclairage utile et très complet sur une communauté dont l’imaginaire identitaire est particulièrement complexe.

2 Mais au-delà de son exhaustivité, la richesse de cet ouvrage est aussi qualitative. Dans son étude des rituels commémoratifs unionistes, Anne-Nicolle Blaya, rend très bien compte de la dimension spatiale et territoriale de la question nord-irlandaise, notamment grâce à des sources cartographiques qui sont jointes en annexes. Ainsi, dans le prolongement des travaux de Wesley Hutchinson, notamment de son Espaces de l’imaginaire protestant nord-irlandais paru en 1999 – ce livre est d’ailleurs le fruit d’une thèse de doctorat dirigée par Wesley Hutchinson qui en signe aussi la préface, l’ouvrage montre que la grande question qui s’est toujours posée à cette communauté porte sur le contrôle, politique, militaire et aussi largement symbolique, d’un espace qu’elle considère comme sien, comme constitutif de son identité, mais que, depuis son arrivée en Irlande au moment des Plantations, c’est-à-dire depuis sa naissance même, elle doit, de gré ou de force, partager et négocier avec la communauté rivale et avec les autorités britanniques. D’ailleurs la problématique est peu ou prou la même, pour la communauté nationaliste. Que ce soit à l’échelle locale, à l’échelle nord-irlandaise, à

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celle de l’île d’Irlande ou des Îles Britanniques, l’identité unioniste et loyaliste est celle d’un groupe qui cherche à se situer et à s’ancrer géographiquement.

3 En somme, si cet ouvrage est utile, c’est parce qu’il apporte une contribution, importante tant quantitativement que qualitativement, à une meilleure compréhension des réalités géopolitiques irlandaises et nord-irlandaises, c’est-à-dire de la dimension territoriale de la vie, des cultures, des imaginaires et des identités politiques sur l’île d’Irlande. Il sera très certainement une source d’inspiration majeure pour tous les chercheurs qui travaillent sur ces questions.

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Northern Ireland

Dominique Jeannerod

RÉFÉRENCE

Jonathan Tonge, Northern Ireland, Cambridge, Polity, 2006, 272 p., ISBN 978-0745631400

1 Le nouvel ouvrage que consacre à l’Irlande du Nord Jonathan Tonge, professeur de Science Politique à l’Université de Liverpool, s’adresse à un public large et varié. Sa concision et sa clarté le recommandent à tous ceux qu’intéresse la question, et en particulier aux étudiants en études irlandaises. Ceci d’autant plus que les utiles annexes qui l’accompagnent (une chronologie, un glossaire des parties en présence, une bibliographie, complétée par une liste de ressources consultables en ligne, ainsi qu’un riche index) en font également un parfait instrument de référence.

2 Les spécialistes suivront avec intérêt l’évolution de la réflexion de l’auteur sur le conflit et sur le processus de paix, sujets sur lesquels il avait déjà publié plusieurs livres remarqués. Ils trouveront dans le présent ouvrage une remarquable synthèse et de nouveaux développements notamment des aspects institutionnels de l’expérience du partage du pouvoir dans l’entité Nord-Irlandaise. Ces éclairages s’avèrent d’autant plus nécessaires que le statut constitutionnel de cette dernière demande encore à être clarifié. Les étudiants apprécieront quant à eux l’autorité et la facilité d’accès de cette étude qui, revenant sur les causes du conflit, explorant les motivations de ses principaux protagonistes et offrant des vues originales sur la paix actuelle et sur un avenir post-conflictuel, propose la plus complète et la plus actuelle des introductions aux réalités politiques de l’Irlande du Nord au XXIe siècle. Selon J. Tonge, qui souligne que la pérennité même de l’Irlande du Nord entérine une faillite de l’idéal républicain d’une Irlande unifiée, ces réalités s’inscrivent désormais dans l’approfondissement du partage du pouvoir, sous peine d’un retour dans le giron de Westminter « dont la compétence directe, assortie de droits de consultation pour l’Irlande, reste l’option la plus probable dans le cas peu probable d’un échec du partage du pouvoir » (p. 32).

3 Les neuf chapitres sont structurés de manière dynamique et problématisée. Ils s’ordonnent dans une perspective à la fois diachronique et thématique autour des

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questions politiques envisagées. Chaque chapitre commence par une évaluation des questionnements les plus essentiels sur les raisons qui ont mené à la violence et s’achève sur un bilan récapitulatif, qui dégage des structures, parfois restées imperceptibles même pour les acteurs du conflit. Le livre donne ainsi lieu à un inventaire contrasté des objectifs historiques des belligérants, notamment l’IRA, l’UVF et l’UDA, puis de ce qu’ils ont au total obtenu a l’issue de leurs campagnes. Le premier chapitre confronte entre elles les différentes théories explicatives du conflit, passant en revue les forces et les faiblesses des arguments insistant sur les structures économiques, sur les facteurs ethno-nationaux et ethno-religieux, ou encore coloniaux, avant d’envisager la pérennité du système de la consociation, sur lequel repose l’accord du Vendredi Saint. Les autres abordent tour à tour l’histoire et l’état présent de l’IRA provisoire, la guerre ouverte (chapitre 3) puis secrète (chapitre 4) contre l’IRA, la politique du Sinn Fein, et les positions des Républicains ultras, avant d’envisager le rôle décisif des violences entretenues par les loyalistes. Sans la menace représentée par ces derniers, le gouvernement anglais aurait, estime J. Tonge, accordé l’autonomie à l’île entière dès avant la première guerre mondiale (p. 147). Ce qui n’empêche pas, souligne- t-il également, que beaucoup de loyalistes, aveuglés par leur méfiance envers le gouvernement anglais comme par leur crainte du républicanisme, semblent ne pas se rendre compte que la guerre est finie, et qu’ils ont gagné (p. 166). J. Tonge expose avec honnêteté et rigueur les controverses non résolues, et aborde de front les questions les plus sensibles, sur les responsabilités respectives dans la « sale guerre », ou sur le degré et l’ampleur de la collusion ayant existé entre les forces de sécurité britanniques et les paramilitaires loyalistes.

4 Ainsi mise en perspective, l’action du gouvernement et des partis politiques dans le processus de paix, puis dans la gestion quotidienne des affaires publiques est mesurée à sa capacité à mettre fin de façon permanente à la violence de trois décennies, ainsi qu’à stabiliser et à normaliser l’exercice du pouvoir politique. Mais, si au plan institutionnel les intérêts sont désormais liés de manière à conjurer un risque de retour aux hostilités, le plus délicat défi pour l’avenir reste l’acceptation sociale du processus, et ainsi ce qu’on pourrait nommer la pédagogie de la paix. Quelques incidents, émeutes et provocations impliquant des loyalistes paramilitaires ont malgré tout persisté, indiquant la fragilité de l’équilibre actuel. Et, comme l’ont montré en mars 2009 les trois assassinats revendiqués par des groupes dissidents de l’IRA, une frange armée de Républicains ultras subsiste également, malgré le cessez-le-feu et le départ d’Irlande du Nord de bataillons du Royal Irish Regiment. C’est ainsi à une réflexion sur la pertinence et l’avenir des logiques communautaristes sur lesquelles repose l’accord du Vendredi Saint qu’invite finalement l’excellent livre de J. Tonge. Le modèle consociatif mis en place par cet accord, qui formalise les divisions entre unionistes et nationalistes, n’encourage-t-il pas en fait les protagonistes, au nom de l’exercice partagé du pouvoir, à se définir de manière identitaire et polarisée, toute négociation entre eux démarrant implicitement sur l’hypothèse d’un clivage ? Là encore, si les effets pervers du processus peuvent en effet se répercuter dans la société, J. Tonge préfère insister sur l’évolution positive que celui-ci entraîne au niveau des organisations représentatives. L’exercice partagé du pouvoir n’a de fait pas été possible sans que les partis engagent une sérieuse révision de leurs programmes. Il a indéniablement conduit à modérer le Sinn Fein et le DUP. La question qui se pose maintenant est de savoir comment dépasser les oppositions à l’intérieur des deux camps, et s’il ne serait pas temps d’arriver à un système plus multipolaire permettant à de petits partis, représentant l’Irlande entière,

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de rassembler les électeurs autour de questions politiques transcendant les fractions et les factions.

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Irish History

Philippe Cauvet

RÉFÉRENCE

Mary McAuliffe, Katherine O’Donnell, Leeann Lane (eds.), Irish History, Palgrave, 2009, 296 p., ISBN 978-1-4039-3516-7, £19.99

1 En dix chapitres thématiques écrits par des historiens de renom, spécialistes de chacun de ces thèmes, ce livre, publié sous la direction de trois éminents historiens, fait l’état des lieux général historiographique et interprétatif de l’histoire irlandaise moderne. Étant donné l’extrême politisation de l’histoire en Irlande et la forte influence du contexte politique et social sur les historiens, un tel travail d’analyse critique est fort utile et permet aux lecteurs, qui doivent être déjà suffisamment avertis, d’identifier les grandes questions qui animent et parfois divisent la communauté des historiens.

2 À côté de thèmes traditionnels comme l’histoire politique (Patrick Maume), l’histoire locale (Maura Cronin), l’histoire économique (Niamh Purséil), l’histoire de la famine (Margaret Kelleher), l’histoire des femmes (Mary McAuliffe), d’autres thèmes plus innovants apparaissent aussi. Ainsi Vera Kreilkamp consacre un chapitre à l’historiographie des représentations visuelles de l’histoire irlandaise; William Murphy s’intéresse quant à lui à la façon dont les historiens ont traité ou ignoré la diaspora irlandaise et les migrants en général. Leean Lane aborde la question cruciale de l’identité irlandaise et s’intéresse à la manière dont les historiens ont interprété et conceptualisé, souvent de manière réductrice, cette identité, même s’il apparaît clairement que ceux-ci tentent aujourd’hui de s’affranchir de cette vision réductrice et de mettre en relief la multiplicité des composantes de l’Irlandicité.

3 L’un des intérêts principaux de cet ouvrage est son organisation thématique, qui permet de mieux comprendre les grands débats qui animent la communauté des historiens. Un seul chapitre, celui de Michelle Ó Ríordáin, s’intéresse à une période chronologique, le XVIIe et le XVIIIe siècles d’avant 1798, mais il montre à quel point

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l’histoire de cette période doit être revue et approfondie tant elle est fondatrice pour l’ensemble de l’histoire moderne de l’Irlande.

4 Dans l’ensemble, cette collection d’articles est une somme très utile pour tous ceux qui veulent étudier de manière approfondie l’histoire politique, socio-économique et culturelle de l’Irlande. En conclusion de son chapitre, Patrick Maume laisse entendre qu’il ne souscrit pas vraiment à la thèse de la fin de l’histoire irlandaise, qu’elle soit politique ou autre: ce livre nous montre à quel point, tant qu’il y aura des historiens comme lui, et comme les autres auteurs qui ont contribué à ce volume, l’histoire de l’Irlande sera un sujet non seulement inépuisable mais aussi et surtout passionnant.

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L’Irlande

Patricia Fournier-Noël

RÉFÉRENCE

Erick Falc’her-Poyroux et Jean Guiffan, L’Irlande, Paris, Le Cavalier Bleu, 2009, 127 p., ISBN-978-2-84670-238-6

1 Cet ouvrage de la collection « Idées Reçues » prend le parti d’aborder l’Irlande sous l’angle des images véhiculées à son sujet. Les auteurs tentent de montrer la part de vérité qui les sous-tend mais se servent surtout de ces images pour présenter la réalité irlandaise de manière plus nuancée. Ils s’intéressent, dans ce cadre, à l’histoire de l’Irlande, mais également à la période contemporaine, ainsi qu’à l’identité et à la culture irlandaises. Ces trois thèmes sont divisés en entrées indépendantes qui correspondent chacune à une idée reçue. Ceci permet aux auteurs de traiter de sujets aussi divers que le climat, l’héritage celtique, le catholicisme, la situation en Irlande du Nord, les rapports de l’Irlande à l’Europe et à la migration, ainsi que la musique ou le sport. Chaque entrée s’appuie sur des citations nombreuses tirées de différentes époques et différents supports : de la littérature à la presse, en passant par les récits de voyage d’observateurs étrangers. Un glossaire et une bibliographie commentée viennent compléter l’ensemble.

2 L’entrée consacrée à l’idée selon laquelle les Irlandais seraient « des catholiques très traditionnels » (p. 29) montre bien l’histoire complexe du christianisme et du catholicisme en Irlande depuis le Ve siècle jusqu’à nos jours. Les auteurs rappellent que l’Église catholique a cependant perdu en 1972 la place spéciale qui lui avait été accordée dans la Constitution de 1937, même si elle n’a pas pour autant perdu toute l’influence qu’elle avait dans les domaines de l’éducation, de la santé et de la morale sexuelle.

3 Les entrées traitant respectivement de l’émigration, présentée comme un phénomène du passé, et de l’immigration, liée au développement économique des années 1990, montrent l’ambiguïté du rapport à la migration en Irlande. C’est l’ambiguïté qui caractérise également les rapports de l’Irlande avec l’Europe. Dans les deux cas, les auteurs montrent comment le passé est utilisé pour rappeler à l’Irlande ce que l’on

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attend d’elle. La critique se mue alors en jugement moral qui fait de l’Irlande un pays ingrat, tant dans son attitude vis-à-vis de l’Union européenne, analysée à travers les résultats des derniers référendums, que dans son traitement des immigrés, l’émigration étant perçue comme une expérience collective qui devrait conduire les Irlandais à se montrer plus accueillants. Les auteurs démontrent que la réalité est plus complexe, les choix politiques jouant un rôle au moins aussi important dans ces domaines que la moralité réelle ou supposée d’un peuple vu comme un ensemble indifférencié.

4 Cet ouvrage, qui donne de l’Irlande une image plutôt positive, est à la fois très accessible et bien documenté. Il constitue une bonne introduction pour qui s’intéresse à l’Irlande d’hier et d’aujourd’hui.

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Tuned Out. Traditional Music and Identity in Northern Ireland

Grace Tempany

REFERENCES

Fintan Vallely, Tuned Out. Traditional Music and Identity in Northern Ireland, Cork, Cork University Press, 2008, 196 p., ISBN 978-1-859184431

1 Tuned Out offers a lively and informative history of traditional music in Ireland in which the author attempts to account for the increasing absence of Protestant musicians from the contemporary traditional music scene. By re-visiting the significance of the revival period for traditional music and demonstrating an acute awareness of how the political context shaped both opinion and practice, the author presents an original and multi-faceted piece of work which will make a worthy contribution to a number of academic fields. Not least of these is the field of ethnomusicology, which has been significantly lacking in thorough studies of this kind.

2 Vallely demonstrates how in the past four decades Protestant musicians have largely detached themselves from a musical tradition that was once common to all people on this island. The changing political climate of the sixties and seventies contributed largely to the “revival” of traditional music and its subsequent classification as a Catholic and nationalist source of entertainment. As a result of the simultaneous growth in support for traditional music and increased fervour for nationalist politics from Catholics, many Protestants felt that they no could no longer identify with the music. This unfortunate situation was not helped by Comhaltas Ceoltoirí Éireann who throughout the period concerned made a number of statements explicitly referring to the connection between musical performance and political aspirations (p. 87).

3 Protestant players generally agree that the music is not of itself or its occasions of practice, political (Whose Music? Conference, Enniskillen, 1990). If individual actors and spectators at a session invest a musical occasion with political symbolism it is done so privately, and meaning for that person is therefore subjective and highly personal. It is

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when these “personal interpretations” become known and accepted as fact that we see this regretful alienation of one community from a music that was once their own. Unfortunately, music in Northern Ireland often functions as an idea of something other than itself. And this is clearly seen in the discourse that surrounds the tradition and its practices.

4 The strength of Tuned Out comes from the wealth of the author’s personal experience as a musician, historian, and teacher of Irish music studies. The diversity of voices included in the book allows readers to appreciate the variety of opinions and the significance of their backgrounds. The book is punctuated by some forty illustrations and newspaper extracts, and a plethora of musical examples support the author’s arguments throughout.

5 What has happened in Northern Ireland is that Protestants have come to reject not the traditional music itself, but what they perceive to be the social function of such music (40). Wolfe Tone said in Stewart Parker’s Northern Star that “Music is the only art above politics. That is why it is the helpless pawn of politicians”. It would indeed seem that in Northern Ireland this “art” has been used more to create and anchor divisions than to heal old wounds. A book like Fintan Vallely’s Tuned Out can do much to set the record straight.

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The Great Community: Culture and Nationalism in Ireland

Olivier Coquelin

RÉFÉRENCE

David Dwan, The Great Community: Culture and Nationalism in Ireland, Dublin, Field Day, 2008, XII + 232 p., ISBN 978 0 946755 41 7, 25 €

1 Le présent ouvrage se veut une réévaluation du nationalisme culturel en Irlande à travers l’étude d’une part, de ses deux principaux représentants que sont, selon l’auteur, le mouvement Jeune Irlande des années 1840 et l’écrivain, William Butler Yeats (Parties I et II) et d’autre part, de ses relations avec l’un de ses principaux vecteurs de propagande, la presse (Partie III).

2 L’analyse des deux premières parties présente l’intérêt de mettre à jour nombre d’aspects bien souvent méconnus des idées véhiculées par la Jeune Irlande et Yeats, qui n’étaient pas sans receler certaines contradictions que l’auteur s’attache à souligner de façon pertinente et convaincante. Ainsi en est-il, tout d’abord, de la Jeune Irlande que l’on voit volontiers comme l’héritière directe de la Société des Irlandais Unis des années 1790. Or si la Jeune Irlande se faisait la partisane des idéaux républicains chers aux Irlandais Unis, elle n’en rejetait pas moins les notions de droit naturel et de droits de l’homme – auxquelles avaient pourtant adhéré Wolfe Tone et ses compagnons – au nom du principe inspiré d’Edmund Burke, fondé sur les droits historiques de l’Irlande. La conception burkéenne de l’histoire devenait pour la Jeune Irlande un rempart contre l’universalisme abstrait des droits de l’homme – qui ne convenait guère au particularisme concret de la nation irlandaise, forgé à travers les âges –, mais également contre l’impérialisme anglais qui imposait à l’Irlande un gouvernement allogène et un caractère benthamien, porteur d’égoïsme et d’individualisme, qui lui était tout aussi étranger. En fait, face au républicanisme des Irlandais Unis puisant sa source dans les Lumières, celui de la Jeune Irlande se voulait civique, c’est-à-dire centré sur le citoyen vertueux, œuvrant pour le bien commun au détriment de ses intérêts

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particuliers. Ce républicanisme se situait ainsi dans le sillage d’une tradition classique issue notamment des écrits d’Aristote et de Cicéron. D’où l’attitude ambivalente de la Jeune Irlande vis-à-vis d’une première Révolution française imprégnée de valeurs démocratiques, génératrices d’individualisme et, partant, de discordes et de factions. C’est pourquoi, afin de cimenter la société irlandaise et réfréner l’individualisme propre à tout processus démocratique, les Young Irelanders entendaient promouvoir une culture nationale, seule à même selon eux de transcender les clivages traditionnels du pays.

3 Plusieurs décennies plus tard, Yeats devait faire sien le nationalisme culturel de la Jeune Irlande pour, au fil du temps, s’en démarquer en raison de son caractère non- conforme aux réalités complexes du monde moderne. Ce qui ne l’empêcha pourtant pas, dans l’expression de sa pensée politique, de continuer à se référer aux mêmes influences (es civilisations anciennes, l’époque classique, Burke…), auxquels vinrent s’ajouter d’autres auteurs de la tradition contre-révolutionnaire, dont de Maistre, Taine et Nietzsche et à concentrer ses attaques sur les mêmes cibles (la démocratie, l’égalitarisme, l’individualisme, le mercantilisme…), auxquels vint se greffer le nationalisme contemporain, empreint de valeurs qu’il jugeait par trop abstraites. Son rejet de toute forme d’abstraction l’amena également à encourager une rupture avec l’âge démocratique au profit de régimes autoritaires de type fasciste, mais dirigés par une aristocratie garante de la tradition. La contradiction ne fait donc aucun doute ici : Yeats dénonçait l’abstraction nationaliste de son époque au nom d’idéaux aristocratiques tout aussi abstraits ; de même qu’il combattait la démocratie pour son potentiel tyrannique en vertu de principes contre-révolutionnaires au potentiel tout aussi tyrannique.

4 Après avoir présenté l’évolution de la presse comme instrument politique au cours du XIXe siècle, Dwan met à nouveau en relief, dans la troisième et dernière partie de son essai, certains aspects contradictoires de la pensée yeatsienne, dont celui – que l’on retrouva chez la plupart des adeptes de l’Irish Revival – de stigmatiser les écrits journalistiques tout en s’exprimant et en gagnant ses lettres de noblesse à travers ceux- ci.

5 La grande richesse analytique du présent ouvrage est donc incontestable, pour qui s’intéresse de près au nationalisme irlandais et à l’idéologie politique en général. On peut néanmoins regretter le manque de liant évident entre les différentes parties, faisant parfois perdre au lecteur le fil conducteur de la réflexion qui s’expose dans l’ensemble de l’essai.

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