Ireland, India and Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century Literature (Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture, Series Number 55)

In this innovative study Julia M. Wright addresses rarely asked questions: how and why does one colonized nation write about another? Wright focuses on the way nineteenth-century Irish writers wrote about India, showing how their own experience of colonial subjection and unfulfilled national aspirations informed their work. Their writings express sympathy with the colonised or oppressed people of India in order to unsettle nineteenth-century imperialist stereotypes, and demonstrate their own opposition to the idea and reality of empire. Drawing on Enlightenment philosophy, studies of nationalism, and postcolonial theory, Wright examines fiction by Maria Edgeworth and Lady Morgan, gothic tales by Bram Stoker and Oscar Wilde, poetry by Thomas Moore and others, as well as a wide array of non-fiction prose. In doing so she opens up new avenues in Irish studies and nineteenth-century literature. Cambridge University Press Cover 1 Half-title 3 Title 5 Copyright 6 Contents 7 Acknowledgments 9 Introduction: Insensible Empire 11 Ireland, india, and the metropole 13 A strange neighbour: at the limits of mimicry 20 Sensibility: national feeling and colonial sympathy 26 Sympathy or horror: imagining india and ireland 32 Part I National Feeling, Colonial Mimicry, and Sympathetic Resolutions 37 Chapter 1 "National Feeling" and Unfeeling Empire: The Politics of Sensibility 39 Antiquarian and inaugural nationalism 40 Sentimental nationalism 47 "The national impulse" in teeling's memoirs of the 1798 uprising 53 Chapter 2 Empowering the Colonized Nation; or, Virtue Rewarded 63 Proud defiance, noble suffering, and patriot passion: ireland as heroine 66 Reforming the imperial subject: sentimental education in morgan's 'the wild irish girl' 74 Assimilation as iteration: foster children in edgeworth's fiction 82 Chapter 3 Travellers, Converts, and Demagogues 91 Missionaries in the colonial imaginary 92 Literary interventions: irish writers on religious toleration 98 Sympathetic travellers in morgan's 'the missionary' 103 Erotic and patriotic sentiment in moore's 'lalla rookh' 108 An irish protestant in search of religion: william hamilton drummond 118 Part II Colonial Gothic and the Circulation of Wealth 127 Chapter 4 On the Frontier: Sensibility and Colonial Wealth in Edgeworth and Lewis 129 Edgeworth's administrators in india 131 Tracing colonial lucre in "the anaconda": nabobs, agents, and traders 136 "Going native": english sensibility and colonial discourse 142 The in-between of colonial ireland: the case of anne o'connor 146 Chapter 5 "Some Neglected Children": Thwarted Genealogies in Colonial History 152 Fragmented narratives: colonial historiography and irish gothic fiction 153 Thwarting historical progress: iteration and contingency in morgan's "absenteeism" 158 Tales of disinheritance: colonial settlers and displaced families in 'melmoth the wanderer' 169 "The tale of the indians": proliferating similes and entangled histories 177 "This distracted land": maccarthy's "afghanistan" 184 Chapter 6 Bram Stoker and Oscar Wilde: All Points East 192 The "ugliness" of empire: wilde's 'the picture of dorian gray' 194 Waves of colonization: stoker's 'the lair of the white worm' 204 Shoring up the borders of empire: stoker's 'the lady of the shroud' 211 Conclusion: The Wild Irish Boy in India 221 Notes 227 Bibliography 256 Primary sources 256 Secondary sources 262 Index 275 CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE AND CULTURE 279 ISBN-13:,9780521868228 Julia M. Wright. An Examination Of Irish Writing About Ireland, Irish Writing About India And British Writing About Ireland And India. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 217-264) And Index.

an Innovative Study Of Irish Writing About India And Imperialism, Revealing How One Colonised Nation Writes About Another.