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The Search For Irishness (Chapter One Of Buffoonery In Irish Drama: Staging Twentieth-Century Post-Colonial Stereotypes), Kathleen A. Heininge

Faculty Publications - Department of English

Excerpt: "A striking feature in Irish culture since at least the late 19th century is an impulse to define what constitutes "Irish," seemingly to establish the qualifications of those who claim to be Irish. It is an impulse that manifests itself in literature as diverse as George Bernard Shaw's play, john Buff's Other Island, James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, or Seamus Heaney's Station Island. The same impulse is at work in the public lives of figures like Oscar Wilde, who while exiled created a fascinating persona for himself; Patrick O'Brian, who refashioned himself as …