McGuire, Matthew

2018-03-29T12:18:46Z

2018-03-29T12:18:46Z

2007

There has to date been no attempt at a detailed comparative study of contemporary Irish and Scottish literature: this thesis constitutes an attempt to do so. Specifically, it looks at the significance of the dialect novel in writing after 1979. My claim is that the dialect novel must be read in terms of the crisis facing working-class communities at the end of the twentieth century. Despite certain attempts to declare class a redundant critical category, I argue that it is fundamental to our understanding of contemporary Irish and Scottish culture.

Chapter one traces the emergence of Irish-Scottish studies as an interdisciplinary field within the humanities. It also outlines the political and theoretical challenges confronting Marxism at the end of the twentieth century. Here I will introduce the work of Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci. Throughout this thesis Gramsci's ideas will underpin the discussion of specific literary texts. Chapter two looks at Scotland and the work of James Kelman. It examines attempts by nationalist critics to locate Kelman's work within the so-called 'Renaissance' of contemporary Scottish literature. Against this, I argue that Kelman's use of dialect belongs fundamentally to a class based politics, one that compels us to reconsider questions of nationalism. Chapter three looks at the Republic of Ireland and the work of Roddy Doyle. Focusing in The Commitments (1987) it examines the novel's contentious claim that the working-class are the niggers of Ireland. The conflation of class and race will be examined in detail. This is particularly relevant in light of James Kelman's coincidental insistence that his own work is part of a literature of de-colonisation. This issue forms a conduit to re-considering the Irish postcolonial debate that arose during the 1990s. Chapter four examines the wholly neglected issue of class within the post '69 conflict in Northern Ireland. It focuses on the role of dialect in Frances Molloy's No Mate for the Magpie (1985) and John Boyd's Out ofmy Class (1985). I argue that socio-economic roots of the Troubles have been systematically elided from mainstream perceptions of the North. Chapter five considers all three regions in a more concentrated form of analysis. It focuses on the critical endorsement of Richard Kearney's concept of postnationalism and the postmodern theory upon which it is predicated. Although popular among both Scottish and Irish critics, I contend that this is essentially a misguided critical enterprise. Postmodernism is read in terms of the enthronement of late capitalist values, producing a cultural discourse that reconfigures rather than redresses underlying issues of social inequality.

http://hdl.handle.net/1842/29263

The University of Edinburgh

Annexe Thesis Digitisation Project 2018 Block 17

Already catalogued

Dialect in Contemporary Scottish and Irish Fiction

Thesis or Dissertation

Doctoral

PhD Doctor of Philosophy