Supernatural substitution and abduction in the drama of the Irish Revival

Title: Supernatural substitution and abduction in the drama of the Irish Revival
Source document: Brno studies in English. 2017, vol. 43, iss. 2, pp. [151]-164
Extent
[151]-164
  • ISSN
    0524-6881 (print)
    1805-0867 (online)
Type: Article
Language
License: Not specified license
 

Notice: These citations are automatically created and might not follow citation rules properly.

Abstract(s)
This article investigates the ways in which the playwrights of the Irish Revival recycled local folk legends of fairy abductions which often featured stocks – pieces of magical wood moulded to resemble a human being – and changelings, supernatural beings secretly left in place of the kidnapped people and one of the most uncanny, familiar, yet disturbingly strange, liminal creatures in Irish folklore. After a brief overview of the cultural and aesthetic values of the period under discussion, and the most significant aspects of Irish folk stories of supernatural abductions and substitutions, I will examine plays written by William Butler Yeats and George Fitzmaurice that explicitly allude to these beliefs. In particular, I will focus on the question of whether these playwrights preserved the ambiguous and often menacing nature of the supernatural substitution in their works and whether they embraced those aspects of the traditional stories that could potentially have challenged the popular, idealized, pastoral image of Ireland.
References
[1] Brennan, Fiona (2007) George Fitzmaurice: 'Wild in His Own Way.' Dublin: Carysfort.

[2] Clarke, Austin (1967) 'Introduction.' In: Austin Clarke (ed.) The Plays of George Fitzmaurice: Dramatic Fantasies. Dublin: Dolmen, vii–xvi.

[3] Eberly, Susan Schoon (1988) 'Fairies and the Folklore of Disability: Changelings, Hybrids and the Solitary Fairy.' Folklore 99 (1): 58–77. | DOI 10.1080/0015587X.1988.9716425

[4] Fitzmaurice, George (1967a) 'The Linnaun Shee.' In: Austin Clarke (ed.) The Plays of George Fitzmaurice: Dramatic Fantasies. Dublin: Dolmen, 39–56.

[5] Fitzmaurice, George (1967b) 'The Magic Glasses.' In: Austin Clarke (ed.) The Plays of George Fitzmaurice: Dramatic Fantasies. Dublin: Dolmen, 1–18.

[6] Foucault, Michel (1997) 'Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias.' In: Neil Leach (ed.) Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory. London: Routledge, 330–36.

[7] Gregory, Augusta (1991) 'Our Irish Theatre.' In: John P. Harrington (ed.) Modern Irish Drama. New York: Norton, 377–86.

[8] Kealy, Una. (2005) 'Mysterious and Fantastic Strange': The Life and Art of George Fitzmaurice (fragments).' Diss. U. of Ulster. Ricorso. http://www.ricorso.net/rx/az-data/authors/f/Fitzmaurice_G1/life.htm. Accessed on June 11, 2017.

[9] Kiberd, Declan (1996) Inventing Ireland: The Literature of the Modern Nation. London: Vintage.

[10] Kristeva, Julia (2012) Letter to Jean Vanier (10 August 2009). In: Katarzyna and Piotr Wierzchosławscy (eds. and trans.) (Bez)sens słabości: Dialog wiary z niewiarą o wykluczeniu. Poznań: W drodze, 35–52.

[11] Lysaght, Patricia (1997) 'Fairylore from the Midlands of Ireland.' In: Peter Narváez (ed.) The Good People: New Fairylore Essays. Lexington: The UP of Kentucky, 22–46.

[12] McDevitt, Patrick F. (2004) May the Best Man Win: Sport, Masculinity, and Nationalism in Great Britain and the Empire, 1880–1935. Houndmills: Palgrave MacMillan.

[13] McGuinness, Arthur E. (1975) George Fitzmaurice. London: Associated UP.

[14] MacPherson, D. A. J. (2012) Women and the Irish Nation: Gender, Culture and Irish Identity 1890–1914. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.

[15] Mac Philib, Séamas (1991) 'The Changeling: Irish Versions of a Migratory Legend in Their International.' Béaloideas 59: 121–31. JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20522381. Accessed on May 30, 2017.

[16] Miles, M. (2001) 'Martin Luther and Childhood Disability in 16th Century Germany.' Journal of Religion, Disability & Health 5(4): 5–36. Taylor and Francis Online. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1300/J095v05n04_02. Accessed on March 28, 2017. | DOI 10.1300/J095v05n04_02

[17] Monteith, Ken (2010) 'Enabling Emer, Disabling the Sidhe: W. B. Yeats's The Only Jealousy of Emer.' South Carolina Review 43(1): 99–115.

[18] Mooney, James (1887) 'The Medical Mythology of Ireland.' Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 24(125): 136–66. JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/983129. Web. Accessed on March 27, 2017.

[19] O'Connor, Barbara (2005) 'Sexing the Nation: Discourses of the Dancing Body in Ireland in the 1930s.' Journal of Gender Studies 14(2): 89–105. | DOI 10.1080/09589230500133502

[20] O'Toole, Fintan (2007) 'Foreword.' In: Fiona Brennan (ed.) George Fitzmaurice: 'Wild in His Own Way.' Dublin: Carysfort, xiii–xviii.

[21] Purkiss, Dianne (2007) Fairies and Fairy Stories: A History. Stroud: Tempus.

[22] Smith, Peter Alderson (1987) W. B. Yeats and the Tribes of Danu: Three Views of Ireland's Fairies. Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe.

[23] Valera, Eamon de (1991) 'The Undeserted Village Ireland.' In: Seamus Deane (ed.) The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing. Vol. 3. Derry: Field Day, 747–50.

[24] Wilby, Emma (2010) The Visions of Isobel Gowdie: Magic, Witchcraft, and Dark Shamanism in Seventeenth-Century Scotland. Brighton: Sussex Academic P.

[25] Yeats, William Butler (1920) 'Away.' In: Augusta Gregory and William Butler Yeats (ed.) Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland Collected and Arranged by Lady Gregory: with Two Essays and Notes by W. B. Yeats. New York: Knickerbocker. Project Gutenberg, https://archive.org/details/visionsbeliefsin00gregrich. Accessed on Sept. 22, 2014.

[26] Yeats, William Butler (ed.) (1998) Fairy and Folk Tales of Ireland. New York: Touchstone.

[27] Yeats, William Butler (2000) 'Under Ben Bulben.' The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats. Ware: Wordsworth, 301–4.

[28] Yeats, William Butler (2001a) 'At the Hawk's Well.' In: Clark, David R., and Rosalind E. Clark (eds.) The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats. Vol. 2. New York: Scribner, 297–306.

[29] Yeats, William Butler (2001b) 'Cathleen Ni Houlihan.' In: Clark, David R., and Rosalind E. Clark (eds.) The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats. Vol. 2. New York: Scribner, 83–94.

[30] Yeats, William Butler (2001c) 'The Land of Heart's Desire.' In: Clark, David R., and Rosalind E. Clark (eds.) The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats. Vol. 2. New York: Scribner, 65–82.

[31] Yeats, William Butler (2001d) 'The Only Jealousy of Emer.' In: Clark, David R., and Rosalind E. Clark (eds.) The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats. Vol. 2. New York: Scribner, 317–28.