The
most common assumption about Irish fiction is that the Irish are particularly
gifted as short-story writers. However, because of Ireland's historically
marginal status in relation to England and because of the short story's
historically marginal status as a genre, many of the authors covered in
this course are, with the exception of James Joyce, neglected in the English
curriculum in America, in spite of the fact that many Irish stories are
centrally important to the development of Irish fiction in particular and
the modern short story in general.
(Note: I have excluded discussions of individual stories by the various writers and all but the most recent general essays on Dubliners, for they are too numerous to cite.)
Averill, Deborah. The Irish Short Story from George Moore to Frank O'Connor. University Press of America.
Benstock, Bernard. "Narrative Strategies: Tellers in Dubliners Tales." Journal of Modern Literature 15 (Spring 1989): 541-59.
Bonaccorso, Richard. "Cork, Paris, and the Rules of the River: O'Faolain and Maupassant." Connecticut Review 12 (Winter 1990): 338.
Browne, Ray B., William John Roscelli, and Richard Loftus, eds. The Celtic Cross: Studies in Irish Culture and Literature. Purdue University Studies, 1964. Contains an essay on "The Irish Short Story and Oral Tradition" by Vivian Mercier.
Calahan, James M. "Humor with A Gender: Somerville and Ross and the Irish R.M." The Comic Tradition in Irish Women Writers, ed. Theresa O'Connor. Gainesville: UP of Florida, 1996, pp. 58-72.
Cahalan, James. The Irish Novel. G.K. Hall, 1988.
Cahalan, James M. Liam O'Flaherty: A Study of the Short Fiction. Boston: Twayne, 1991.
Cronin, John. The Anglo-Irish Novel: The Nineteenth Century. Appletree Press, 1980.
Cronin, John. "Donging the Tower: The Past Did Have Meaning: The Short Stories of Brian Friel." The Achievement of Brian Friel, ed. Alan Peacock. Bolin Smythe, 1993, pp. 1-13.
Cronin, John. Irish Fiction: 1900-1940. Appletree Press, 1992.
Daniels, William. "Introduction to the Present State of Criticism of Liam O'Flaherty's Collection of Short Stories: Duil." Eire-Ireland 23 (Summer 1988): 122-34.
Eagleton, Terry. Heathcliff and the Great Hunger: Studies in Irish Culture. London: Verso, 1995.
Fletcher, John. "Joyce, Beckett, and the Short Story in Ireland." Joyce 'n Beckett, ed. Phyllis Carey. NY: Fordham UP, 1992, pp. 20-30.
Gillespie, Michael Patrick. "Aesthetic Evolution: The Shaping Forces Behind Dubliners." Language and Style 19 (spring 1986): 149-63.
Hayley, Barbara. Carleton's Traits and Stories and the 19th Century Anglo- Irish Tradition. Totowa, N.J.: Barnes andNoble Books, 1983. Detailed discussion of most of the stories in both the first and second series of Carleton's stories.
Kersnowski, Frank. "Politics and Other Affirmations in John Montague's Narratives." Journal of the Short Story in English 8 (Spring 1987): 103-112.
Kiberd, Declan.
Inventing Ireland. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1996.
Kilroy, James F.,
ed. The Irish Short Story: A Critical History.
Twayne, 1984.
Martin, Augustine. The Genius of Irish Prose. Dublin: Mercier Press, 1984. Contains "The Short Story: 1900-1945" by Colvert Kearney and "The Short Story After the Second World War" by John Jordan.
MacKillop, James. Fion Mac Cumhail: Celtic Myth in English Literature. Syracuse UP, 1986.
Natecz-Wojtczak, Jolanta. "Joseph Sheridan LeFanu and New Dimensions for the English Ghost Story." Literary Interrelations: Ireland, England and the World Tubingen: Narr, 1987,, pp. II: 193-198.
Neary, Michael. "The Inside-Outside World in Frank O'Connor's Stories." Studies in Short Fiction 30 (Summer 1993): 327-36.
Neary, Michael. "Whispered Presences in Sean O'Faolain's Stories." Studies in Short Fiction 32 (Winter 1995): 11-19.
O'Hara, Kiera.
"Love Objects: Love and Obsession in the Stories of Edna
O'Brien."
Studies in Short Fiction 30 (Summer 1993): 317-25.
Partridge, A. C. "Language and Identity in the Shorter Fiction of Elizabeth Bowen." Irish Writers and Society at Large, ed. Masaru Sekine. Totowa, NJ: Barnes and Noble, 1985, pp. 169-80.
Pelaschiar, Laura. "Ulster's Paradise Lost: The Blind Fields of Eugene McCabe." Prospero 3 (1996): 153-71.
Peterson, Richard F. "Frank O'Connor and the Modern Irish Short Story." Modern Fiction Studies 28 (Spring 1982): 53-67.
Porter, Raymond. and James D. Brophy, eds. Modern Irish Literature. NY: Twayne Publishers, 1972.
Rafroidi, Patrick and Terence Brown, eds. The Irish Short Story. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, Inc. 1979. This collection of essays includes four general surveys of the Irish short story, as well as essays on such individual writers as William Carleton, Sheridan Le Fanu, George Moore, James Joyce, Seamus O'Kelly, Daniel Corkery, Liam O'Flaherty, Frank O'Connor, Sean O'Faolain, Samuel Beckett, Mary Lavin, Michael McLaverty, Bryan MacMahon, Patrick Boyle, and John McGahern.
Rafroidi, Patrick. Irish Literature in English: The Romantic Period. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: 1972.
Rafroidi, Patrick and Maurice Harmon, eds. The Irish Novel in Our Time. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, nd.
Rauchbauer, Otto. "The Big House in the Irish Short Story after 1918." Ancestral Voices, ed. Otto Rauchbauer. Hildesheim: Olsm, 1992, pp. 159-93.
Rix, Walter T. "Irish Oral Tradition and the Narrative Structure of the Anglo- Irish Short Story." Anglo Irish and Irish Literature: Aspects of Language and Culture, ed. Birgit Bramsback. Uppsala Univ;, 1988, pp. 149-63.
Saxton, Arnold. "An Introduction to the Stories of Bernard MacLaverty." Journal of the Short Story in English 8 (spring 1987): 113-23.
Scher, Amy. "Preaching and Ecological Conscience: Liam O'Flaherty's Short Stories." Eire-Ireland 29 (Summer 1994): 113-22.
Shumaker, Jeanette Roberts. "Sacrificial Women in Short Stories by Mary Lavin and Edna O'Brien." Studies in Short Fiction 32 (1995): 185-97.
Stinson, John J. "Replicas, Foils, and Revelation in Some 'Irish' Short Stories of William Trevor." Canadian Journal of Irish Studies 11 (Dec. 1985); 17-26.
Storey, Michael. "Not to Be Writer Afterwards: The Irish Revolution in the Irish Short Story." Eire-Ireland 28 (spring 1993): 32-47.
Tillinghast, Richard. "They Were As Good as We Were: The Stories of William Trevor." The New Criterion 11 (Feb. 1993): 10-17.
Thompson, Richard J. Everlasting Voices: Aspects of the Modern Irish Short Story. Troy, NY: The Whiston Publishing Co., 1989. Primarily on Moore, Joyce, O'Faolain, O'Connor, and Lavin. ($15.00)
Vandervist, Harry. "Nothing Doing: The Repudiation of Action in Beckett's More Pricks Than Kicks." Critical Theory and Postmodern Textuality, ed. Daniel Fischlin. Dordrecht: Kluwer Acad, 1994, pp. 145-56.
Vertreace, Martha M. "The Goddess Resurrected in Mary Lavin's Short Fiction." The Anna Book, ed. Mickey Pearlman. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1992, pp. 159-66.
Zimmerman, Georges-Denis.
"Conflicts Contexts: Traditional Storytelling Performances
in Irish Short Stories." Reading Contexts, ed. Neil
Forsyth. Turbingen: Narr, 1988, pp. 103-15.
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