Co-published by Routledge and Edition Synapse, the History of
Feminism series makes key archival source material readily
available to scholars, researchers, and students of women's and
gender studies, women's history, and women's writing, as well as
those working in allied and related fields. Selected and introduced
by an expert editor, the gathered materials are reproduced in
facsimile, giving users a strong sense of immediacy to the texts
and permitting citation to the original pagination.
This new title in the series brings together a unique selection
of the multiple feminisms articulated by Irish writers between 1810
and 1930, a ?long Victorian? period. The five volumes foreground a
multiplicity of beliefs and attitudes from novels, poetry, short
stories, newspaper and journal articles, and essays, both by
relatively unknown and by more celebrated writers (such as Lady
Gregory, Lady Wilde, and the Parnells). While the history of
feminism consistently and universally reveals conflicting
interpretations of the female role in society, the situation in
Ireland was significantly complicated by the backdrop of national
uprisings, land war, world war, and the growing hegemony of a
strongly religious patriarchy. In particular, the collection makes
apparent the disparities of interest as writers confront, or
covertly negotiate, the burning issues of education, suffrage, and
participation in charitable work or politics.
Female frustrations, and collusion, with societal norms are
documented in each of the thematically organized volumes. Volume I
(?Leading the Way?) includes key ideological articulations of Irish
feminist beliefs. Volume II (?Land and Labour?) is a collection of
vital materials which show the intermeshing of women's concerns
with prevailing political turmoil. The question mark in the title
of Volume III (?Eire Ab (?Ireland Forever )) hints at the
uncertainties facing women in any New Ireland. These fears are
reflected in the materials reproduced in this volume, which
contains work by the redoubtable Sheehy Skeffingtons, by the
strongly feminist Haslams, and by Yeats's beloved Maud Gonne.
Nationalistic and feminist prose and poetry by sisters Countess
Markievicz and Eva Gore-Booth?portrayed by Yeats as ?one beautiful,
the other a gazelle is also included in this volume. Bringing
together extracts from biography, fiction, poetry and bitter-sweet
drama, Volume IV (?In the Real World?) is a repository of vital
work which engaged with education, social and sexual mores,
marriage, and religious life and the novel Callaghan is its fitting
and concluding text. Finally, Volume V (?Literary Approaches?)
highlights disparate expressions of the evolving Irish attitudes to
feminist issues, from the competing spheres of the convent and
secular world (George Moore's ?The Exile?), to challenges to fixed
notions of gender (K. C. Thurston's Max). The sheer diversity of
poetical contributions is fascinating.
Most texts in this collection have either not appeared at all
since their first publication, or have never been reprinted in
their entirety; the remainder have been extremely difficult to
find. Their collocation and juxtaposition in these volumes provides
a unique insight into a multiplicity of Irish feminisms, and
vividly recreates the literary and historical climate in which they
were written. With its comprehensive introductions, (which furnish
vital background information), this ground-breaking collection is
destined to be welcomed as a treasure-trove by all serious scholars
and students of Gender and Irish Studies?as well as those working
in Victorian and Literary Studies.
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