Violence, Narrative and Myth in Joyce and Yeats: Subjective Identity and Anarcho-Syndicalist Traditions

242 Pages·2013·1.218 MB·English

by  Tudor Balinisteanu (auth.)

Violence, Narrative and Myth in Joyce and Yeats
Also by Tudor Balinisteanu
NARRATIVE, SOCIAL MYTH, AND REALITY IN CONTEMPORARY
SCOTTISH AND IRISH WOMEN’S WRITING: Kennedy, Lochhead, Bourke,
Ní Dhuibhne, and Carr
Violence, Narrative and
Myth in Joyce and Yeats
Subjective Identity and A narcho-
Syndicalist Traditions
Tudor Balinisteanu
University of Suceava, Romania
Palgrave
macmillan
© Mihai Tudor Balinisteanu 2013
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2013 978-0-230-29095-2
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First published 2013 by
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To Eldalie

Contents
Acknowledgements viii
Introduction 1
1 Yeats’s Revolving Gyres: A Metaphorical Language for
the Modern Experience of Anarchism, Syndicalism,
and Political Aesthetics 15
2 Social Myth, Material Reality, and the
Aesthetico-Ideological Functions of Art 33
3 The Political Aesthetic of Yeats’s Myth in Anarchist
and Syndicalist Contexts 49
4 Social Myth, Literary Narrative, and Political Aesthetics 65
5 Social Myth and James Joyce’s Political Aesthetic 79
6 Social and A nti- social Aesthetic Drives in Joyce,
Yeats, and Sorel 95
7 W. B. Yeats, Social Myth, and Monoglossia 111
8 James Joyce, Social Myth, and Heteroglossia 127
9 Heteroglossic Desubjection and Monoglossic Subjection
in Joyce, Yeats, and Sorel: Social Myth, Anarchy,
and Syndicalism 143
10 Modernism, Myth, Violence, and Social Change 159
11 Modernist Art, Politics, and Social Change:
A Sorelian Perspective 179
12 Modernism, Narrative, and Violence 199
Conclusion 219
Notes 227
Bibliography 229
Index 239
vii
Acknowledgements
This project took shape during a discussion with Dr Finn Fordham
at Royal Holloway College, University of London. I am grateful to
Dr Fordham for his continuing moral support and for very useful cor-
respondence on topics addressed in the book. Professor Nicholas Allen
(the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts, University of Georgia)
has also helped me stay focused on what has seemed to be a complex
and unmanageable set of topics. I will always be indebted to Professor
Alice Jenkins (University of Glasgow) for helping me to find a voice
of my own.
Many people helped in defining the purpose and direction of my
arguments, in particular Professor Ortwin de Graef (Catholic University
of Leuven), Professor Carle B onafous- Murat (University of Sorbonne
Nouvelle), Professor Gert Buelens (Ghent University), Dr John Nash
(Durham University), Professor Jonathan Starbrook (University of
Manchester), Professor Sascha Bru (Catholic University of Leuven),
Professor Hedwig Schwall (KU Leuven Centre for Irish Studies), and
Professor Ken Hirschkop (University of Waterloo). I found very stimu-
lating the lectures given by Professor Charles Altieri (University of
California, Berkeley) and Professor Tyrus Miller (University of California
at Santa Cruz), organised by the MDRN research group at the Catholic
University of Leuven in spring 2012. The debates and seminars
organised by the RIPPLE group at KU Leuven and the Hoover Chair
of Economic and Social Ethics at Université catholique de Louvain,
Louvain- la-Neuve, were also very inspiring.
It would not have been possible to complete this project without the
support and understanding of my colleagues at University of Suceava,
especially Dr Evelina Graur, Dr Cornelia Macsiniuc, and Dr Valentina
Curelariu.
The ethos of my research is derived from direct experience of working,
as a volunteer, with a number of grassroots environmental groups that
adopt anarchist principles in decision making, n on- violent direct action,
gender equality, and justice, to name but a few areas of social life. I have
learned a lot from participating in the 1995 Walk across Europe for a
Nuclear- Free World, organised by For Mother Earth, Ghent, and from
working with European Youth Forest Action, Amsterdam, on organis-
ing several Ecotopia summer camps. I am especially grateful to Joey
viii
Acknowledgements ix
Rooderkerken for making me understand, through his artisan work, how
art can be seen as always implicated in social change.
Last but not least, I am thankful to my partner, Laura Manea, for her
patience and encouragement throughout all the stages of this project.
This research was supported by a grant of the Romanian National
Authority for Scientific Research, CNCS – UEFISCDI, project number
PN- II- ID- PCE-2011-3-0106.