KNOCKNAGOW IS NO MORE.pdf (original) (raw)
Related papers
2009
have demonstrated the extraordinary intellectual range, thematic complexity and stylistic innovation of Irish fiction. Derek Hand provides a remarkably detailed picture of the Irish novel's emergence in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He shows the story of the genre is the story of Ireland's troubled relationship to modernisation. The first critical synthesis of the Irish novel from the seventeenth century to the present day, this is a major book for the field, and the first to thematically, theoretically and contextually chart its development. It is an essential, entertaining and highly original guide to the history of the Irish novel.
‘for the honour of old Knock-na-gow I must win’: Representing Sport in Knocknagow (1918)’
Screening the Past: an online journal of media and history, Special Issue: Knocknagow (1918), Issue 33 , 2012
Knocknagow (Fred O’Donovan 1918) is among the most important productions of one of the first major Irish film companies, the Film Company of Ireland (FCOI). However, for followers of sport in Ireland, the film has a further significance. Firstly, Knocknagow includes one of the earliest surviving depictions of hurling on film - and the earliest depiction found in fiction film - when the local hero, Mat “the Thrasher” Donovan, leads his team in a game. This scene is followed by one of the highlights of both Charles Kickham’s 1873 novel of the same name on which the film is based and the FCOI work itself, the hammer-throwing contest between Mat and the undefeated British officer, Captain French. These scenes provide valuable insights into both these sports as the film’s producers attempted to capture their form and style as played in the mid-nineteenth century, the setting of both book and film, and a consideration of sport adds considerably to our appreciation of the film’s continuing importance as a record of the period depicted. While being informative with regard to the crucial relationship of sport to national identity, masculinity and class in Ireland at the turn of the twentieth century, these sporting depictions are also cognisant of the international focus of followers of sport in Ireland, particularly through the involvement of Irish-born athletes at the Olympic Games. Furthermore, the representation of hurling and the hammer-throw in the film reflect the key connection between sport and early film internationally and in the Irish context. Sport played an important role in the development and popularisation of nationalism and film in Ireland at this time, and the inclusion of hurling and the hammer-throw within Knocknagow contributed significantly to the political resonances of the work itself for contemporary audiences, issues explored in more detail in this article. Online version of entire article available here: http://www.screeningthepast.com/2012/02/%E2%80%9Cfor-the-honour-of-old-knock-na-gow-i-must-win%E2%80%9D-representing-sport-in-knocknagow-1918/
The Cambridge Companion to the Twentieth-Century English Novel
2009
The twentieth-century English novel encompasses a vast body of work, and one of the most important and most widely read genres of literature. Balancing close readings of particular novels with a comprehensive survey of the last century of published fiction, this Companion introduces readers to more than a hundred major and minor novelists. It demonstrates continuities in novel-writing that bridge the century's pre-and postwar halves and presents leading critical ideas about English fiction's themes and forms. The essays examine the endurance of modernist style throughout the century, the role of nationality and the contested role of the English language in all its forms, and the relationships between realism and other fictional modes: fantasy, romance, science fiction. Students, scholars and readers will find this Companion an indispensable guide to the history of the English novel.
"Contemporary Fiction and the Critical Act"
ichard Bradford's The Novel Now: Contemporary British Fiction closes with a familiar complaint about scholarly writing on literary topics. "[T]he absorption of theory into academic criticism," writes the professor of English at the University of Ulster, "has all but immunized the latter from that most contentious, subjective feature of talking and writing about literature: an inclination to offer an opinion on whether or not the novel or the author are any good" (246). Impatient with scholarship in which evaluative responses are "compromised by other commitments," Bradford therefore declares in his preface: "One objective of this book will be to show that enjoyment and critical scrutiny are not mutually exclusive activities" (vi).