‘Talk talk talk …’ Virginia Woolf, Ireland and Maria Edgeworth

Estudios Irlandeses

Paul E. H. Davis¹ 

[1] The University of Buckingham, England ;

关键词: Woolf;    Edgeworth;    Swift;    talk;    superficial;    Land Question;   

DOI  :  

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

This article considers Woolf’s only visit to Ireland and her attitude to the country as revealed in her diary and in a review of a book about Maria Edgeworth. She considered the fault of the Irish to be their loquaciousness. Her diary reveals her belief that Irish literature had declined since Dean Swift. Woolf, both in her twenties and when she visited Ireland in 1934, revealed a certain antipathy to the country. She asserted, for example, that the Irish propensity to talk had prevented the production of literature of any quality after the eighteenth century. In the 1909 review, Woolf, while criticising the author of a book about Maria Edgeworth, attacks Edgeworth herself. But her words imply that she had not read Maria’s Irish novels. Bloomsbury’s ‘snobbery’ and Woolf’s Feminism throughout the essay are evident in her implicit criticism of the way that Edgeworth sacrificed love for duty. In dismissing Edgeworth’s achievement, Woolf betrays a degree of ignorance that is worth considering.

【 授权许可】

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