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Alternative Ireland: Modernism And Urban Space In Twentieth-Century Irish Literature, Kurt Patrick Voss-Hoynes

Open Access Dissertations

Twentieth-century urban literature of Dublin and Belfast presents Ireland’s alternative modernity as one that is ecumenical, heterogeneous, unique, and autonomous. In “Alternative Ireland: Modernism and Urban Space in Twentieth-Century Irish Literature,” I look to modernism, rather than postmodernism, as the aesthetic mode by which twentieth-century Irish novelists sought to re-think contemporary Ireland’s relationship to history and imagine a modern Ireland alternative to either imperial or provincial modernity. I argue that an alternative Irish modernity articulates a mass culture that not only rejects the mythological past but also recognizes cultural, social, and political possibilities that have been silenced in a traditional …