Decolonisation and Criticism: The Construction of Irish Literature

This book investigates the role of literary criticism in the process of Irish decolonisation since the late eighteenth century, with special emphasis on the 1950s. *BR**BR*Drawing on the work of both Irish and international commentators - including Edward Said, David Lloyd, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Luke Gibbons - Gerry Smyth seeks to reconfigure the established relations between literature and criticism. Smyth then sets his analysis against a modular theory of decolonisation based on a reading of Irish history from the perspective of contemporary postcolonial and post-structural theory. *BR**BR*Engaging with debates in a number of current fields, Decolonisation and Criticism challenges many assumptions and practices of Irish literary history.