My thesis prospectus (-the boring timeline stuffs, completed just now in an increasingly sober state):
The two most central figures of Ireland’s literary tradition, William Butler Yeats and James Joyce, invested their artistic talents and energy in the emerging Irish nation. Both sought to become the preeminent artist of the Irish, and a number of similarities can be drawn in both the difficulties each faced and in the way they overcame them in their art throughout the tumultuous birth of the Irish Free State. There is a clear difference in the manner in which Yeats attempts “To write for my own race” as opposed to the way Joyce seeks “to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated consciousness of my race." Yeats efforts are more easily identified as overtly political than the difficult writings of the self-exiled Joyce. It has only been in more recent years that Joycean critics have recognized and analyzed (rather than denied) the national elements of Joyce’s writing. Additionally, Joyce—younger, Catholic, and impoverished—viewed himself as more authentically Irish and his art as less compromising than the Celtic revivalists with whom Yeats was associated. Nevertheless, both artists wrote and represented an Ireland that was hardly supportive, often indifferent, and sometimes openly hostile to their artistic efforts to write for their nation.
Much has been written about the representations of Ireland in the writings of Yeats and Joyce. While representation plays a central part in understanding their efforts, this project is principally interested in the reaction of Ireland to these self-proclaimed national artists and the effect that this reaction had on the artists themselves and their later writings. Ultimately, both Joyce and Yeats would be embraced by their country, but they could not dictate the terms.
I will conduct my research using biographies and letters as well as close readings of relevant works. This project will not be considering Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake, as the complexity of that work makes this impracticable for an undergraduate honors thesis. Where the writings of critics and commentators can be useful and relevant (where indeed?), they will be incorporated with the proper discussion of theory as applicable.
I know analogies have been taken off the SATs, but try this one for old time's sake:
Sunday morning christian : pope
as
I : Scholar
