Yeats and the Anglo-Irish Twilight

Abstract

The Anglo-Irish Twiligt of the 1920s and 1930s when the Anglo-Irish as a class became a spent force. Yeats' association both the Celtic and the Anglo-Irish. His aspiration for a unity of culture which did not materialise. Teh Anglo-Iirsh not just descendents of the landowning occupation gentry but the smalll but influential Protestant middle class which dominant professional life and private enterprise. A disprotortinate influence on intellectual life. A discussionof the circumatances that brought Yeats to settle in Dublin following 1921 and how he expressed a general awareness of the volent potential of the age and of the fear of communism. His latent Conservative and autocratic tendencies. The activities of a few in the post independence period to rework the concept of unity of culture. Allying himself to the former Unionist group in the Senate. The Irish Staesman,edited by AE, as the main organ of the Anglo-Irish voice. That the Abbey had become too realist and too populist. Yeats inclination was to cultivate a myth of the Anglo-Irish and its 18th c high point and turn away fromhis earlier preoccupation with Celtic mythology. The creation of a great tradition in Swift, Berkely, Goldsmith. The elements of Yeats later conservativismand flirtation with fascism. His outburst in the Senate where he proclaimed his allegiance to the ANglo Iirsh minority and one ofthe great stock of Europe. His pugnacious response to the growing intoleranc eof Catholic nationalism. Open hostility to the nationalist bourgeoisie. The o'Casey riots of 1926 a re run of the earlier reaction to Swift. His arguments against censorship (after hehad left the Senate). The Catholic triumphalism of 1932 with the Eucharaostic congress and the rise of de Valera . A sense of targic resignation on the 1930's when he alone was eft of the earlier Anglo Irish group. Culture and Anarchy in Ireland 1890-1939 Unity and Diversity That in modern Ireland culture has been a divisive rather than a cohesive force. The obverse of Arnold's thesis that culture was a source of unity - that culture in Ireland, or cultures, was a source of diversity and conflict. Identifies the coexistence of a number of distinct and oppositional cultures - the dominant English, the Gaelic, the Ango-Irish and the Unionist. That this fragmemtation in society made it more difiicult for Irish people to have a sense of themselves. (An Arnoldian versus an anthropological understanding of culture). A social history of the living conditions of Ireland in the 19th c. Passing of Irish language and the gradual encroachment of modernity. National education. Creation of a peasant proprietary through land legislation. The chasm of the absence of a middle class in the traditional sense (13). The growth of a petit bourgeoisie of small landowner, shop keepers, publicans etc. Professional middle class in Dublin dominated by Protestantism. The Anglo-Irish identity at the close of the century. Divided loyalties and a schizophrenic identity. A ruling class of gentry which some of the trappings of aristocracy without the wealth. The Anglo-Irish way of life (21). Their increasing isolation with the rise of nationalism. The special case of Ulster. After Parnell Symbolic event of the fall of Parnell after which extremism and cultural diversity became evident. Irish studies from the start a product of the Ascendancy. Samuel Ferguson and the Royal Irish Academy. Revival of language linked with nationalism by Thomas Davis. A strong argument of fusion - that a nation without a language is only half a nation (32). Revival of ancient folklore and myths by Standish O'Grady and Douglas Hyde - the inspiration for Yeats, Lady Gregory and others. Between Parnell and O'Grady both having left their class Unionism behind - what the future would hold whether a bourgeois democracy or an aristocratic form of oligarchy. Hyde's plea for the Irish language to spread it at least from dying out. The nonsectarian nature of Parnellite nationalism. O'Leary's influence on Yeats tuning him to questions of a Gaelic mythic past. After Parnell - the split which was sectarian. The opportunity for a cultural nationalism. Opening of divisions - the de-Davisisation of Irish literature, i.e., the creation of an Anglo-Irish culture. Another way of looking at it - the de-Anglicization of Ireland - the Gaelic League and the GAA. Hyde's 'The Necessity for De-Anglicising Ireland' - against the slavish conformism which made the Irish adopt everything English. The battle of two civilisations most vehemently expressed by D.P. Moran (44) - the conflict of an Irish-Ireland and an Anglo-Irish Ireland. The founding of the Irish Literary Theatre and the attempt to form Yeats' Unity of Culture. The optimistic period of cultural nationalism after Parnell which appeared to rise above politics and with the efforts of Horace Plunkett and AE also sought to improve the economic conditions for national sovereignty. Irish Ireland vs Anglo-Irish Ireland The cultural fusion that was the basis of the Celtic revival proved to be illusory as nationalism developed. Cultural Sinn Feinism espoused by DP Moran - his version of the battle of two civilisations. A dilemma of political opposition that both Anglo Irish and Gaelic activists shared. The theatre the ground of much of this debate particularly in the rows over Synge - whether there sh be an Irish literature in English, whether there cd be a cultural identity all felt comfortable with and whether art cd be subordinated to a political cause. John Eglinton as the exponent of cosmopolitanism. Isolating influences of Gaelicism and nationalism. Criticism of subordinating art to nationalism on the one side and not being nationalistic enough on the other. Yeats attempt to hold a middle position between parochialism and cosmopolitanism. A vision of a genuinely Irish but European literature under aristocratic leadership. How this began to crumble. The significance of the lane controversy - the meanness and philistinism of the ruling forces in Dublin. The larger dispute of 1913. The alliance of Catholicism and nationalism also proved fatal for the Anglo-Irish constituency. At Opposite Poles The hope and bitterness of the foundation of the Irish Free State. A focussing on physical boundaries that left aside any consideration of cultural differences until recently. Cultural priorities the Irish language. Cementing of Catholicism's public role - sure signs that the battle of civilisations had been lost with censorship of films and publications, , tax on newspapers, public dance halls act, ecclesiastical congress and culminating in the constitution of 1937. Solitary voices of AE and later O'Faolain who tried to maintain a critical voice. Later cultural expressions of Flann O'Brian, Clarke and others however show the extent to which the fusion had paradoxically occurred in this unique form of literature.