RICHARD FRAlîCIS A L L M THE PLACE OP IRONT IN GEORGE MOORE’S PROSE^NARRATIVES R, H. G. L IB ^ R Y GLASS Nü Ph*D THESIS - U ü. P:n.|j IDAJiO^ LONDON UNIVERSITY ' L U ! 1971 ProQuest Number: 10096762 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest. ProQuest 10096762 Published by ProQuest LLC(2016). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 - 2 - Abstract This study of George Moore’s work attempts three tilings: an account of his development as a writer, an explanation of why he should have written what were, conventionally,- idiosyn­ cratic. books, and a consideration of Moore as an individual responding to the situation of his class in society in the years I88O-I920. In his first novels Moore tried to gain a reputation for himself in the romantic world of art far from the dying world of Galway. First he sought to gain notoriety as a leader of fashionable society, and then a more permanent fame writing serious Naturalist novels. But he could not sustain this sociological viewpoint or the belief in a new world because he felt that all progress was futile, and that the heroism necessary to confront the meaninglessness of the world was impossible. He turned then to shorter novels which concentrated on the plight of individuals. Moral problems became passive subject- matter for a display of aesthetic skill, most noticeably in the use of irony. This is remarkable because effective irony demands a control of language and thought conspicuously lacking in the earlier novels. Moore ostensibly continued to believe in a new cultural renaissance, but in the long prose-narratives the intellectual consideration of the characters ’ motives becomes predominant and Moore uses characters as ironic reflections of each other to expose the falseness of the old world. This irony is apparently based upon a "natural" way of life. But the value Moore really believed in was the work of art as a guarantee of stability in a shifting world. The tragedy was that he fled for security to his writings, but they could only remind him he could no longer hold his youthful dream. - 3 - Contents preface — 4 1. Youth in Ireland - •5 2. England; Freedom and Chaos - 19 3. A Mummer’s Wife and Esther Waters - 38 4. Portrait of the Artist - 57 5. Studies of Religious Temperaments - 78 6. Sympathetic. Portraits : Evelyn Innes — 95 and Oliver Gogarty 7. Mock-heroic Irony; Hail and Farewell - 113 8 . Humanistic Irony; Values - 133 9. Humanistic Irony; The Ironic Schemes - 151 10. Irony and Ambiguity - 169 11. Nai’ve Romanticism — 195 12. Intellectualism and Classicism - 213 13. Romanticism —-229 Bibliography - 249 - 4 - preface To indicate the sources of the quotations in the text I have adopted the following system. In the case of Moore *s own works I have given in a bracket after the quotation first an abbreviation of the title of the work (usually consisting of the initial letters of the words of the title), then the date of the particular edition of the book I am referring to, and finally the page reference itself. Thus, for example, (BK(1916) p200) indicates that the quotation is taken from page 200 of the first edition of The Brook Kerith published in I9I6. When the title of the work from which the quotation is taken is obvious I have omitted this; less frequently I have also omitted the date of the edition. In the first part of the Bibliography I have listed all of Moore’s works from which I have quoted together with the abbreviations I have used for them in the text. References to all other sources are given in a similar fashion. After the quotation I have given first the name of the author of the book, then the date of the work, and finally the page reference. For example, (Mansergh(l965) pl66) indicates page I66 of Nicholas Mansergh's The Irish Question,1840-1921 published in I965. Full details of the editions I refer to are given in the second section of the Bibliography. Where more than one book by any author appears in the Bibliography the date of the edition shows from which I am quoting. In referring to collections of Moore's letters I have used either the name of the recipient of the letters or that of the editor of the collection in the reference. I have included details of these editions in both sections of the Bibliography. - 5 - 1. Youth in Ireland In the passing of the 1801 Act of Union between Britain and Ireland "all the arsenal of political corruption and chicanery were exhausted in order to inaugurate a series of remedial and . healing measures. If the Act was not productive of such measures then it would be entitled... to be unequivocally condemned by history" - such was the opinion of Lord Randolph Churchill (Mansergh(1965) pl66). It did not fulfil its aim however, and in the years around 1852 when George Moore was born, the Irish began to lose faith in this kind of relief and to turn more and more towards extra-Parliaraentary action as a means of achieving an Ireland governed by Irishmen. The I846 Famine finally proved that in the state it was in at this time the Irish agricultural system could not feed the Irish people. The founding of the Sinn Fein movement in I858 marked the beginning of the course of action which was to lead via Parnell and the I9I6 Uprising to the settlements of I920 and I923. In the years between I858 and 1920 although successive governments passed measures of Land Reform equally often attempts to attack the problem at its roots by granting some degree of Rome Rule were defeated. The suffering of the Irish people during these years was so great that no party was able to ignore the need for some form of relief. Although they were at root determined to preserve the estates and rights of the Irish land-owners who were their staunch supporters even thb Tories who opposed Gladstone's Home Rule policies were eager to demonstrate that by twenty years of resolute government the problem might be solved. In all these years the fate of two classes of people, the normally Protestant landlord and his tenant, the usually Catholic peasant, most concerned those in power. That these divisions were not uniformly rigid is shown by the Moore family. Although they were land-owners they could not be - 6 - counted among the greatest of that class. Moreover in the I85OS they were, like their tenants. Catholics and George Henry Moore sat at Westminster as a representative of the Tenant Right Party. J.C.Beckett has written that "with the disintegration of the Tenant Right Party at the end of I852 Irish politics seemed to lose all sense of purpose"(Beckett(l966) p357), however G.H.Moore held his seat until I857, now as leader of the Irish Independent Party, His standing during these years was high. During this time, when the Independent Party for a time held the balance of power in the Commons, he refused Lord Aberdeen’s offer of the Chief Secretaryship in Ireland - as later he was to refuse Gladstone’s invitation to sit on the Alabama Commission. But he too began to lose faith in Parliamentary action and in I858 established contacts with the new Sinn Fein Party (his son Maurice even asserts that he took the oath, Moore(I913) p350)« Two years before his death however G.H.Moore again entered Parliament; "He advocated reforms in the system of land tenure, and by enlisting the priests on his side was enabled in I868 to win a memorable election, which broke the political power of the Mayo landlords for ever"(Hone(1938) p32). George Henry Moore’s actions during the Great Famine might further seem to place him at the side of the peasant rather than the landlord for he, had the satisfaction of knowing that not a single one of his tenants, over five thousand men, women, and children, died of want during those dreadful years (Moore(I913) pl25)* But rather than seeing G.H.Moore at the side of the peasant manning the barricades it would be more appropriate to see him condescending to the peasant on the race—course. He took up racing again after leaving Parliament in 1857 srid had some successes and an almost equal number of failures. Joseph Hone suggests in his biography of George Moore that it was in part the loss of his stables in I868 that made his father return to politics (1938, p32). G.H.Moore’s attitude to the peasants then seems more likely to - 7 - have been that of a paternalistic landlord than an equal comrade, and his efforts towards reform in land tenure were an attempt to preserve this conservative relationship. Financially his endeavours to help his tenants during the famine years later cost him dear. Many landlords took the opportunity of the unrest of the forties and fifties to cut down the number of their tenants and convert their land from arable to pasture, thus making them more productive and raising the standard of living of those tenants who remained.