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Overview
Irish Literature: The Eighteenth Century illustrates not only the impressive achievement of the great writers - Swift, Berkeley, Burke, Goldsmith and Sheridan - but also shows the varied accomplishment of others, providing unexpected, entertaining examples from the pens of the less well known. Here are examples of the witty comic dramas so successfully written by Susannah Centlivre, Congreve, Steele, Farquhar and Macklin. There are serious and humorous essayists represented, including Steele, Lord Orrery, Thomas Sheridan and Richard Lovell Edgeworth. Beginning with Gulliver's Travels, fiction includes John Amory's strange imaginings, Sterne's stream of consciousness, Frances Sheridan's insights, Henry Brooke's sentimentalities and Goldsmith's charm. Poetry ranges from the classical to the innovative. Graceful lyrics, anonymous jeux d'esprit, descriptive pieces, savage satires and personal poems are written by very different poets, among them learned witty women, clergymen and drunken ne'er-do-wells. Politicians, notably Grattan and Curran, produced eloquent speeches; effective essays and pamphlets accompanied political activity. Personal letters and diaries - such as the exuberant Dorothea Herbert's Recollections - convey the changing ethos of this century's literature, based on the classics and moving to an increasing interest in the translation of Irish literature.Synopsis
The anthology is part of a series providing access to works that have played a significant role in Irish literature and history but are not considered significant enough to reprint in modern English-language editions. Among the writers represented are Jonathan Swift, George Berkeley, Oliver Goldsmith, Sir Richard Steele, Laurence Sterne, Edmund Burke, the ever-popular Anonymous, and many not previously known except to specialists. Biographical sketches introduce each one. Distributed in the US by ISBS. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR