CHARLOTTE BROOKE AND LADY GREGORY: IRISH LITERARY NATIONALIST WRITERS

Abstract

Ireland’s literary response to British colonization produced two distinctly important literary movements: antiquarian nationalism in the eighteenth century and the Irish Literary Revival in the nineteenth. Writers in both movements explored traditional Irish themes and images; however, antiquarian nationalists glorified a pre-colonial national past while Literary Revivalists emphasized native, cross-cultural, and individual experiences. Charlotte Brooke (1740-1793) published Reliques of Irish Poetry in 1789. Lady Augusta Gregory (1852-1932) published Cuchulain of Muirthemne in 1902 and Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland in 1920. Each book typifies the interests of the movement in which it was created, but all three have unique characteristics uncommon amongst peer writing, such as Brooke’s inclusion of original Gaelic sources and Lady Gregory’s translations from local, native Gaelic speakers. In spite of this, Brooke and Lady Gregory are often undervalued and misrepresented in Irish literary surveys or by literary scholars.