Staging Europe, Staging Ireland: Ibsen, Strindberg, and Chekhov in Irish Cultural Politics, 1899--1922
Ivanova, Miglena Iliytcheva
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/87289
Description
Title
Staging Europe, Staging Ireland: Ibsen, Strindberg, and Chekhov in Irish Cultural Politics, 1899--1922
Author(s)
Ivanova, Miglena Iliytcheva
Issue Date
2004
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Palencia-Roth, Michael
James Hurt
Department of Study
Comparative Literature
Discipline
Comparative Literature
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Theater
Language
eng
Abstract
By reconstructing and analyzing seminal Irish premieres and revivals of plays by Ibsen, Strindberg, and Chekhov at the Theatre of Ireland (1906--1912) and the Irish Theatre Company (1914--1920), this study reveals the critical role of Northern Europe in the search for wider, alternative models for Irish national drama. The study examines the appeal the Scandinavian and Russian traditions had for Irish playwrights and cultural revivalists like Edward Martyn and George Moore, Lennox Robinson and the Cork Realists, the brothers Thomas and John MacDonagh, and Joseph Plunkett. In Ibsen, Strindberg, and Chekhov, they saw irrefutable proof that dramatists from peripheral European countries, each coming from a marginal literary tradition and writing in 'small' and 'exotic' languages, which were hardly spoken outside of the playwrights' homeland, could compel Europe to recognize the importance of their voice, assigning to them a position of centrality in the European cultural space. The official narrative of Irish national drama has subsequently denied these Europe-oriented cultural figures any representative meaning, labeling them as 'minor' and 'insignificant' from literary point of view, and for the most part omitted them from its historical accounts. This study offers an alternative narrative; investigating artistic and cultural politics which, parallel and complementary to those advocated by W. B. Yeats and Irish-Irelanders, it restores critical access to those sites of openness whose significance was later played down to ensure a coherent, Abbey-centered, narrative of Irish national drama.
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