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The Production of Cultural Space in Irish WritingAuthor(s): Seamus DeaneSource: boundary 2, Vol. 21, No. 3 (Autumn, 1994), pp. 117-144Published by: Duke University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/303602.

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The Production of CulturalSpace in IrishWriting

Seamus Deane

Since the Act of Union (1800), which, in response to the Rebellionof 1798, incorporatedIreland ntothe UnitedKingdomof Great BritainandIreland,the problemof representingthe countrybecame more imperativeand more complicatedthan it had been before. Itwas not, in itself, a newproblem.Since the earlierwatershed inIrishhistory, he settlement of 1690,which established the Anglo-Irishascendancy and culture,the question ofthe nature of Ireland'srelationshipto Britain had been governed by thewish to assert its difference from, and yet compatibilitywith, the Britishpoliticaland culturalsystem. Swift and ArchbishopKing,WilliamMolyneuxand ViscountMolesworth,Charles O'Conorand OliverGoldsmith,EdmundBurke and WolfeTone were all participants nthe English-languageside ofthis debate.' Butonce Irelandbecame constitutionallyntegratedwithGreat1. For general accounts, see Louis M. Cullen, The Emergence of Modern Ireland, 1600-1900 (London: Batsford, 1972; 2d ed., 1988); Thomas Bartlettand Derek Haydon, eds.,Penal Era and Golden Age: Essays in Irish History, 1690-1800 (Belfast: Ulster Histori-cal Foundation, 1975); David J. Dickson, New Foundations: Ireland, 1660-1800 (Dublin:1987); Nicholas P. Canny, Kingdom and Colony: Ireland in the Atlantic World, 1560-boundary2 21:3, 1994. Copyright? 1994 byDukeUniversityPress. CCC0190-3659/94/$1.50.

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118 boundary/ Fall1994Britain,hroughhe loss of its ownparliamentnDublin nd the substitutesystemofhavingtsrepresentativeslectedtothe Westminsterarliament,itwas necessaryalso to integratetculturally.neof thefirstmanifestationsof the projectof culturalntegration as the exponential rowth n travelliterature, genre inwhichIreland adalwaysbeen rich,because itwasso consistently urveyed,reported n,andgenerally onsidered s a placethatwas both"home"nd"other,"omesticandforeign.After1800,travelliterature ad a morespecific purpose hanbefore-namely,to make Ire-landrecognizably partof the UnitedKingdom,o representtas a partofthe larger ystemor to representt insucha waythat its refusal o be socould be explained,fnotexcused.21800 (Baltimore:ohns HopkinsUniversity ress, 1988);NicholasP.CannyandAnthonyPagden, eds., Colonial dentityn the AtlanticWorld,1500-1800 (Princeton:PrincetonUniversity ress, 1987);MarianneElliott, artnersnRevolution: heUnited rishmen ndFrance(NewHaven:YaleUniversity ress, 1982);MarianneElliott,WolfeTone:Prophetof Irish ndependence(NewHaven:YaleUniversity ress, 1989);TomDunne,TheobaldWolfeTone:ColonialOutsider Cork:TowerBooks of Cork,1982);TheodoreW.Moodyand WilliamE. Vaughan,eds., Eighteenth-Centuryreland,1691-1800, vol.4 of A NewHistoryof IrelandOxford,England:ClarendonPress, 1976);ThomasBartlett, 'APeopleMade forCopies rather hanOriginals': he Anglo-Irish,760-1800,"InternationalHis-toryReview12(Feb. 1990):11-25;ThomasBartlett,TheFallandRise of the IrishNation:A Historyof the CatholicQuestion,1690-1830 (Dublin: 992);Seamus Deane, "Swiftand the Anglo-Irishntellect," ighteenth-Centuryreland/Irisn da chultur1 (1987):9-22; DavidG. Boyce, "Separatism nd the IrishNationalTradition,"n ColinH.Williams,ed., NationalSeparatism(Cardiff:University f Wales Press, 1982), 75-103; David J.Dickson,DaireKeogh,and KevinWhelan,eds., TheUnitedIrishmen:Republicanism,Radicalism,and Rebellion Dublin: heLilliputress, 1993).2. See Charles J. Woods, "IrishTravelWritingsas Source Material,"rishHistoricalStudies 28, no. 110(Nov. 1992):171-83; GlennHooper,"TheForcing-Ground:olonialEnglandandIreland, 596-1860"(Ph.D.diss., University ollege,Dublin, 993);BarbaraO'Connorand MichaelCronin, ds., Tourismn Ireland:A CriticalAnalysis(Cork:CorkUniversityPress, 1993).Amongthe most notabletravelers, he followingmay be men-tioned:George Holmes,Sketches of some of the southerncounties of Ireland ollectedduringa tour n the autumn,1797 (London,1801);Jacques-Louisde Bougrenet,cheva-lierde Latocnaye,Ramblesthrough relandby a Frenchemigrant trans.Dublin,1797);John Carr,TheStranger n Ireland; r,a tour n the southernand westernparts of thatcountry n the year 1805 (London,1806);RichardC. Hoare,Journal f a Tourn Ireland,A.D. 1806(London,1807);"JohannFriedrichHering's escription f Connacht,1806-7,"trans.and ed. CharlesJ. Woods,IrishHistorical tudies25, no.99 (May1987):311-21;John Gamble,Sketches of history,politicsand mannerstakenin Dublinand the northof Irelandn the autumnof 1810 (London,1811);A view of society and manners n thenorthof Irelandn the summerand autumnof 1812 (London,1813);HoraceTownsend,A tour hrough relandand the northern artsof GreatBritain;withremarkson the geo-


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Deane Productionf Culturalpace 119The relatedquestionsof territory, roperty,and,and soil consti-

tutedaninescapably ontested eriesof definitionsndvocabularies, iventhe historyof conquestand confiscationn Ireland, speciallysince theseventeenth century.Of these, territorys the seniorterm, since it in-cludes the others at least in a spatialsense, although t is rarelyper-fectly congruentwiththem,even when theirsemanticrangeis extendedto enforcesuch a congruence.Thephysical andscapeof Irelands regu-larlyredefinedhroughouthe nineteenth entury-administratively,arto-graphically, olitically,ulturally,conomically,onstitutionally-byompet-ing groups,all of whichseek to make tconform o a paradigmnterms ofwhich tcansuccessfullybe representeds a specificplace, ndeed,butalsoas a locus forvarious ormsofideologicalnvestment.3ut he ActofUnion,as is wellknown,broughtheAnglo-Irishscendancyoftheeighteenth en-tury o anendinthe limitedense that t ransformed colonial roupinghathadproducedtsownvariantorm findependenceroma politicallitewithconsiderable ulturalpretensionso a garrisonandlord lass almosten-tirelybereftof suchpretensions ndaddicted o the unionwithGreatBritain,rather han oanyformofindependence,or tspreservation. et, histrans-formation oincidedwith he emergence nEurope f deeplyconservativeand nostalgicallynclinednational entiment. na sense, Ireland ecameone of the beneficiaries ndone oftheproducersf such sentiment. tscul-turalappealwas limitedorthose membersof the Protestant arrisonwhoforesaw hatsuchsentiment ould eadto politicaleparatism nd,thence,the breaking f the Union. relandwas seen, andincreasinglyaw itself,asa characteristicallyromantic"ulture,hereby ndicatingts differencewithlogical structureof the places visitedmade for thepurposeof forming ome judgmentrespectingthe natureand extentof the coal formationnIrelandCork, 821).Manyof thetours were undertakenby Methodists ndAmericanQuakers orevangelizingpurposes.The Europeanravelers,especiallythe French,were moresympathetico Ireland,whichappearedto them variouslyas one of Europe'soppressednationalities r as a Catho-lic nationundergoingan experiment-conductedby DanielO'Connell-in democraticnationalism.There is as yet no bibliographyf thisliterature.3. Among hese, thefollowingelectionmaybe cited: heNational choolssystem(1831);the OrdnanceSurvey (1830-1839); the formation f a nationalpoliceforce, The IrishConstabulary1836); he HomeRuleBillsof 1886, 1893, 1912; he ten LandActsof 1860-1903; the Disestablishment f the Irish Protestant)Church 1869);the various culturalformations,rom he CelticSociety(1845),the GaelicLeague(1893),the Gaelic AthleticAssociation(1884),to the AbbeyTheatre 1904);YoungIreland1840),the Fenians,andthe IrishRepublicanBrotherhood1858).Allof these had a totalizing,national tructureorpurpose.


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120 boundary / Fall1994an Englandhat was increasinglyeen, andincreasinglyaw itself,as anurban,"mechanical,"rutilitarian,ulture.Herein, t the culturalevel, laythe representationalaradigmhatgoverned o manyof the transactions,especiallythe literaryransactions, etween he twocountries ormost ofthe nineteenth entury.Even he catastrophe fthe Famineof 1845-1850was renderedamenable o it.All he majorEnglish ommentators n Ire-landinthis periodsubmit o its force-Coleridge, Southey,Carlyle,JohnStuartMill,Arnold,and HavelockEllis.4So, too, do Frenchcommenta-torsas otherwisedifferent s MontalembertndRenan.5ButIrishwriters,too-Thomas Moore,GeraldGriffin,he Banimbrothers,WilliamCarleton,JamesClarenceMangan,ThomasDavis,CharlesKickham,omerville ndRoss, GeorgeMoore,OscarWilde,Bernard haw,PadraicPearse,GeorgeRussell,and W.B. Yeats-respond eagerlyto this paradigm, lthough tmaybe said thatwithYeatsandhis contemporariesexcluding oyce), ithad becomeinstitutionalizedntoa formof racialmillenarianism.

My purposehere is to lookat selected aspects of this processwherebyheurge omakewhatwasstrange-a recalcitrantreland-famil-iar,a partof the UnitedKingdom,roduced otonly he subversion f thatinitial rgebutalsodid hisbyopeninga newspacefordiscourse. n henewspace, variousattemptso representreland erepredicatednthe sharedbelief hat hecountry adneverbeenadequatelyoratall)represented e-fore.The sense of an initiatorylankness, remptiness,and the evolutionofthetechniquesbywhich tcouldbe filleds anabiding ne inIrishwriting.Preciselybecause the attempt o producea culturalpace is so impera-tiveand,at the same time,so doomed ofailure-since theentity"Ireland"cannotbe accommodatedwithinhecanonical"British"ormsof represen-tation-Irishwritings highly xperimentalnits search oralternativeormsand highly ubversiveof itsownprocedures, ince such alternativeormsare neverdeemedto be sufficient rsufficientlyanonical.Thedifference,usually he differencenextremity f conditions,betweenIreland ndtheUkanian tate,ofwhich twas neverthelessa part,wasoften nterpretedsa disabling ne. Becauseitcouldnotbe representednthe traditionalorms,Irelandwastaken o be beyondrepresentationndbeyondcivilization.he4. See Seamus Deane, "IrishNationalCharacter, 790-1900,"in TomDunne, ed., TheWriter s Witness Dublin:rishHistorical tudies,1986),16:90-113.5. ErnestRenan, ThePoetryof the CelticRaces and OtherStudies, introd.WilliamG.Hutchinson1896;reprint,New York ndLondon:Kennikat ress, 1970);the leadessayappeared irst n 1854and was translatedn 1896.See also R. le Comtede Montalembert,Lettre urle catholicismeen Irlande Lyon,1834).


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Deane ProductionfCulturalpace 121capacityof the traditionalorms hemselves,and thedegreeto which heyweregeneratedwithin, ndby,differentocial andpoliticalircumstances,were not ssues seriously onsidered na wholly lertmanneruntilhecloseof the nineteenth entury, xceptinthe fieldof economic hought.There,John StuartMillhad been compelled o revise his Principlesof PoliticalEconomy 1864)inorder o take accountof the Famine, tscauses anditsaftermath.6There is a sequence, muchinflectedaccordingo circumstances,thatneverthelessachievesaclear ogicofitsown hroughouthisperiod ndthat s initselfbotha representationf the Irish-Englishelationshipnd anattempted nalysisof it.Itbeginswith he"romantic"haracterizationf Ire-land nthe lateeighteenth entury ndat firstassumesanecumenicalorm,whereby he Irish ommunitys envisagedas havinga peculiar nd exoticorigin Carthaginian,cythian)hatdistinguishest romheEnglishSaxon,Roman)and,inaddition,hatacts as an annealment f the sectarianrup-tures that latercame to obscure thatpre-Christianacialunity.This wasthe large-scaleprojectionftheinternalttempt-mostfamously mbodiedinCharlotteBrooke'sReliquesof IrishPoetry 1789)-to founda nationalconsensus throughhemelding f theGaelic-/andEnglish-languageradi-tionsinpoetry.The"cordialnion"7nvisagedbetween hese poetriescan,of course,be seen as an attempto reconcilenthe fieldof literature hathadbecomeirreconcilablenthe fieldofpolitics.Still,he impulseo identifysucha consensusandto make tavailablehroughranslationnd,further,to glamourize s truly uthentichose elementsof the national xperiencethat had been stifledwere allconstituent lementsinearlyIrishromanticnationalism. tdepended, ndeed,on an "imaginedommunity,"'lthough6. See ThomasA. Boylanand TimothyP. Foley,"JohnElliotCairnes,John StuartMill,and Ireland:Some Problemsfor PoliticalEconomy,"n AntoinE. Murphy,d., Econo-mists and the IrishEconomyfromthe EighteenthCentury o the PresentDay (Dublin:IrishAcademicPress, inassociationwithHermathena, 984).See also Seamus Deane,ed., The Field Day Anthologyof IrishWriting, vols. (Derry:FieldDay Publications,1991),2:116-17, 184-92, 238-39; this work s hereafter ited in mytext and notes asFDA.Mill efersto the connectionbetween his PoliticalEconomyand the Famine n hisAutobiography 1873), chap.7. See also John M.Robson,ed., CollectedWorks f JohnStuartMill(Toronto:University f TorontoPress; London:Routledgeand Kegan Paul,1965),vol.3, appendixH,1038-95. ForMill's ssays on Ireland,ee CollectedWorks,(1982):497-532.7. CharlotteBrooke,Reliquesof IrishPoetry(1789),iv.8. BenedictAnderson, maginedCommunities: eflectionson the Origin nd SpreadofNationalism, ev.and extendeded. (London ndNewYork:Verso,1991),6-7.


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122 boundary / Fall1994the cultural ondinghatwas producedbysuch an invented raditionwasbound to be threatenedby the realitiesof political nd economicpowerwith heirrootedsectarianbase. Still, he notionof such a communityur-vivedthe debate betweenseparatism nd union hathad been increasingin intensityrom he 1740supto the revolutionaryecade of the nineties.9Butafter he Union, he communityf the Irishpeopleincreasinglyameto be identifiedwith he Catholic rish. twas their raditionshat hadbeenoccludedanditwas theirpoliticalxistence hathad beendeniedwith herefusalof CatholicEmancipation,hichwas supposedto accompany heUnion.Inaddition,he economiccrises thatfollowed he end of the Napo-leonicWars, he sectarian rusadesofthe 1820s,andtheTitheWarsof the1830s, all followedbythe terrible 840s inIreland,madeitdifficult,o saythe least,foranyone o defend hebenefitsof the Union or he mass of theIrishpeople.Thus,their ncorporationithinhe Britishystemwas under-stood to be a decisiveact of colonial ppression atherhan(oras wellas) adecisive act of constitutionallarification.twas atthisjuncturehatIrelandas the "romantic"ountry ame into tsown,eitheras a representationfa sacralcommunity ppressedbya secular,modernizingolonial tate oras a representationf an irretrievablyncivilizedommunity ot fitted orsurvivalnthe modernworld.Onecuriousmesalliance f thesecontrary ositionss to be found nCarlyle's riendshipwith he Young relander, avanDuffy.Carlyle greedwithDuffyand hiscolleaguesthatirresponsibleandlords adcreated hetide of Irishpoverty hat was beginningo swamp Liverpool, ondon,andothermajorEnglishcities. Duringhe Famineyears,he preparedo writea book on Ireland,proclaiminghatthe condition f Irelandwas a keytounderstandinghe condition f England.Butby 1848,he was announcingthat"Eternal aw"had decreed hatEnglandmustgovernIreland ndthatthe Irishmust either "becomeBritish" r "becomeextinct; ut off by theinexorablegods."10Bleakly,he Irish,ordifferentonstituenciesof them,accommodated oth hese choices.9. See Thomas Bartlett,"The Burdenof the Present: TheobaldWolfeTone, Republi-can andSeparatist,"n TheUnited rishmen:Republicanism,Radicalism,and Rebellion,1-15.10. RichardH. Shepherd,Memoirsof the Lifeand Writings f ThomasCarlyle,2 vols.(London,1881),2:383. See ChrisVandenBossche, Carlyle ndthe SearchforAuthority(Columbus:Ohio State UniversityPress, 1991),125-41; for otherreferencesto Irelandalso byCarlylenthese years,see Clydede L.Ryals,Kenneth . Fielding,anCampbell,AileenChristianson,Hilary . Smith, eds., The Collected Lettersof Thomasand JaneWelshCarlyle,vols. 19, 20, 21 (Durham,N.C.:DukeUniversity ress, 1993);see espe-


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Deane Productionf Culturalpace 123Thevalue of Carlyle'snterventionere is that he makes the asso-

ciationbetweenEngland'sesponsibilityo (and or)Ireland ndEngland'sdestiny-which also includes reland'sestiny-in a muchmoredeclama-toryfashionthan Mill rArnold reven Gladstone.Heexposes a linkagethat the romantic/utilitarianpposition onceals. Forthe Arnoldianrgu-ment that attributes ultural utonomyo a CelticIreland nd political e-sponsibilityo a SaxonEnglando finda benignrather han coercivewayof incorporatinghiscarefullyonstructed Other"s also predicatedntheassumptionof a particularestiny hatgoverns,by a law of Nature,bothcountries.Similarly,Mill's olicyof amelioration,is assertion hat Irelandwouldalwaysbe misrepresenteds abnormals longas Englandwas takenas the norm,hat he traditionalnglishnotion fproperty ouldhave to bemodified o takeaccountof Irish onditions, repositions hatassumethenecessityof the constitutionallliancebetweenEngland nd Ireland.rishdifference an be obliterated,s inCarlyle'swritings,raccommodated, sinthose of Mill ndArnold;tcan neverbe autonomousnitself."1These Englishcommentatorsonsistently ee the so-called Irishquestionas one that raises the questionof leadershipand its responsi-bilities.The leaderships England's.Toquestion hat itself s beyondthehorizonof theirconsiderations,venthough heyare aware hat hat is in-creasinglywithinhe horizon f the Irish iew of the situation.Leadership,however, s notexclusively matter f politicalontrol nd itspreservationthroughconstitutional r economicreform. tis an exercise, as they sawit,inthe productionf modernity. ne of the featuresof travelwriting ndof those culturalurveysaboutIrelandhatare so prolificneverydecadeof the nineteenth entury s the assumptionhatthe writer s dealingwithan anachronistic ulturehat mustbe coaxed or coerced out of itswillfullynonmodern, ven antimodern,ondition o that itcan be clearedfortheinitiation f modernity. ven hose Irish rAnglo-Irishriterswhorecordedthe country'solklore ndantiquities idso inthe spiritof preserversanddestroyers,or,rather, f destroyerswhose benign echniqueand aimwasciallyhis letter o GavanDuffynthespringof 1847(21:168-69):"toatleast render relandhabitable forCapitalists,fnot forHeroes; o inviteCapital, nd Industrial overnorsandGuidance .. whatothersalvationcan one see forIreland?" arlyle'sour nIrelandwaspublishedas Reminiscences of my Irishourney n 1849 (London,1882).See also FredKaplan,ThomasCarlyle:A Biography Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress, 1983),334-47.11. Ironically,t was the strugglefora measure of Irishautonomy, nthe formof HomeRule, that broke the Liberalpartyin Britain.See PerryAnderson,EnglishQuestions(Londonand New York:Verso,1992),147.


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124 boundary / Fall1994that of preservation. In his Fairy Legends and Traditionsof the South ofIreland 1825),ThomasCroftonCroker rovidesa rather amshackle ndsecondhandaccountof hissubject nthe hopethat"when ational duca-tion shall be diffusedamong he misguided easantry f Ireland,he beliefin such supernatural eings[theShefro, he banshee]mustdisappear nthatcountry,as it has done in England, nd these "shadowyribes"willliveonlyinbooks."12Thisis an impulse ommon o manysuch recordersof the nativebeliefs,customs,and habits,althoughtwas also the casethatsuch reports hadedveryoftenintotouristic ccounts of the pictur-esque quality f Irish ifeandlandscape.Opened o inspection, relandwasalso opened to tourism.Subject o schemes forimprovementr forcon-version romCatholic uperstitionndpovertyo Protestantnlightenmentand prosperity,talso became attractive s a leisureresort,embalmed nthe premodernormaldehydef endearingbackwardness.During nd after he Famine,he touristicermsof endearmentwerebanished,andthe political ndeconomicquestionof the form hat mod-ernizingeadershipmight ake assumed critical roportions.13utbythen,afterthe failureof the pathetic1848 rebellion, ndwith he arrival f thephysicalforce Fenianmovement,he rise of a moreorganizedand mili-tantconstitutional artyunderParnelland the LandLeagueagitationofthe 1870s, organizedby MichaelDavitt,he political nd economicmodi-ficationsoffered,albeitreluctantlynd sporadically, y Westminster adthemselves becomeanachronistics measuresthat hadas theiraim theaffirmationf the constitutionalinkandthereconciliationfthe differencesthatthreatened t.Forin the aftermath f the Famine, he culturallyma-ciatedIrish ommunityurnedo thefast-food,nstant-lrishryf YoungIre-land'sdoggerelanddogmaandtothe variants f heroicCelticism, ecycledthrough ranslationsrom,or redactions f, Irish-languageriginals.Evenmagicand occultismwerereimportediaa versionofthe Orient o specifyIreland's ifference-butnow twas a differencehatparaded nachronismas a unique ormofmodernity,he form hatwasopposed o modernizationandwas, inconsequence,culturallyicher.12. Thomas CroftonCroker,FairyLegendsand Traditionsf the Southof Ireland Phila-delphia,1827),257.13. This sense informs he writingsof Carlyle,Mill,and Arnoldn the periodbetween1850 and 1890. Itled Arnold,orinstance,to resurrectEdmundBurkeas an exemplaryfigure orthe conductof Irish-Englishelations,hus restoringo Burke's rishwritingsaconservativegloss thathad previouslybeen deniedthembyAnglo-Irisholiticiansandlandlords.See Arnold'sEdmundBurkeon IrishAffairsLondon,1881).


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Deane / Productionof CulturalSpace 125

George Sigerson, n the preface o the secondeditionof his impor-tant anthology Bards of the Gael and the Gall (1907; firstedition 1897),claimed hat "thereasonwhythe Celts did notcomposerimedepics wasbecause of their xtremementalmodernity.. Theactivity ndrestlessnessof ourowndayswere ntheirbloodnallknown ime. .. Theywere, ntruth,the Moderns f the Past-perhaps theyare alsofated obe the Moderns fthe Future."'14relandeproducedackwardness s a Celtic ormof moder-nity hatwas traditional-a manifestationf the "nationalharacter,"owsponsoredas the mostsecure elementof historicalontinuityhroughoutthe vicissitudesof the past.Once the IrishRevivalhad,throughStandishO'Grady, igerson,andYeats,established hatthisCelticspiritwas Prot-estant as well as Catholic, formof Protestant issentthatrepudiatedhemodernworldustas muchas Catholicoyaltyo ancient ormshad resistedit,the cultural ersionof the solidarityf the Irishnational ommunitywascomplete.ThustheCeltic tereotype, nitiallyreatedas anexplanationor heintractabilityf the Irish othecivilizingrocessesofmodernity, as refash-ionedbythe Irish hemselvesto claimmodernityor itselfand to relocatethe EnglishorAnglo-Saxontereotypeas the culturallyereftbuttechno-logically quipped ommunalormhatwasdevoted o meremodernization.Even he tourist relandftravelwriting as redesignedo create heimageof the country s one partitionedetweena modernized nd therefore ul-turallyweakenedEastanda traditionalndimmemoriallyichWest.Theapotheosisof the West of Irelands the last bastionof the ancientcultureof Europehadverylittle o sanction t historically.he so-called clachanvillagesof the West had appeared n the lateeighteenthcenturyas thepopulation xplodedand the previouslyuntilledandsof the West weretaken overto accommodate he expansion.With he series of economicdisastersthatfolloweduponthe end of the NapoleonicWarsand culmi-natedinthe potatoblight,he Westbecamedepopulated gain.Butin itsdesolation, twas reconstrued s theremnant f anancientcivilizationhathad survived n this vestigial orm romancienttimes.Thus,it remainedpicturesque, ut tshistorywas rewrittennditsgeography econstructed.15Tourismwas, so to say, internalizeds a spiritual uestforthe country's14. See the prefaceto George Sigerson,Bards of the Gaeland the Gall,2d ed. (Lon-don, 1907).15. KevinWhelan,"SettlementPatternsntheWest of Irelandnthe Pre-FaminePeriod,"inTimCollins,ed., DecodingtheLandscape(Galway: ocialSciences ResearchCenter,UniversityCollege,1994),60-78.


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126 boundary / Fall1994essentialspirit.Acolonial ystemhadbeen invertedntoa nationalistys-tem. The basicfeaturesremainednplace,but heynowoperatedna newlyproduced ulturalpace.One of the requirementsf such a decolonized pace was that itshouldintroduce r reintroduce dimension f experience hat had beencanceled or otherwiseconquered.Nationalismmet thisrequirement y itsreinsertion f the conceptof the sacred.Toeffectthis, itconceivedof thesacred as a conditionhatinhered nthe site of the nation tselfandthat,invirtueof such inherence,possessed, and was possessed by,those whosimultaneously elonged o the nationand to whom he nationbelonged.Increatingsuch a paradigm f sacrality,nationalism ad to reorder hevocabulariesof thatkindof instrumentaleasoning hat made a virtueofdisengagement rom"lived"xperience, hatgaveprimacyotheatomizedindividual nd made law-the creationof a contingent, elf-justifyingd-ministrativeystem-superior tojustice.InIreland,ne of the centralactsof such reorderingwas devotedto the vexedquestionof land,its owner-ship,its status,itsphysical,andeven itsmetaphysical, roperties. uch areordering ecessarily nvolved he productionf a newhistory f the landof Ireland, narrativehathadthe dual unction f legitimizingnretrospectwhathadalwaysbeentrue.

Landand SoilThere s a difference etween he Irishbattle or he land nthe nine-teenthcenturyandthe battle orthe soil. Soil is what andbecomeswhenit is ideologicallyonstructed s a natalsource,thatelementout of which

the Irish riginate nd towhich heirpastgenerationshave returned.t s apolitical otiondenuded,bya strategyofsacralization,f all economicandcommercialreference.The epigraphor TheNationnewspaper,"racyofthe soil," ndicates hatpublication'setermined rive owardsa "rediscov-ery"-reallya reconstruction-ofauthenticity.hestruggleor he landand,indeed, hestrugglewith he land, scontrastingly arked yan inexhaust-ibleseries of references o itseconomic tatus-property,rent,productivity,upkeep, improvement,mpoverishment,wnership,enantright, andlordright,buyingand selling,state purchase,redistribution,ndso forth.Thedistinctions notpeculiaro Ireland, or is it confined o versions,sacredorsecular,of territory.tperhapshas itsoriginsn thecounterrevolutionaryreactionothe redivisionf FrencherritoryuringheRevolution, henthetraditionaloundaries etween heoldprovinceswerereplacedbydivisions


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Deane Productionf Culturalpace 127thatwere based on a mathematicalndsymmetricalmodel.Burke ulmi-natedagainst his,butso, too,didFrench ommentators,uch as Remusatandde Maistre.16twas construed otonlyas anassaultonhistoricallyanc-tionedpietiesbutas a characteristicallyodern r secularreinterpretationof landas merelyor exclusivelyan administrativer economiccategory.Strippedof its ancientassociations, t entered ntothe worldof the politi-cal economistsandtheirpeculiardiom f measureandprice, orgoingheidiomof presenceandvalue.Nationalism as the two-faceddeology hatcouldexploitboth dioms,althoughndoingso, itrarelynterfusedhem.Itcouldmake the claim o authenticityntermsof the soil andmakethatinturnpartof the concurrentlaim o ownership f the land nIreland,wherethe relationshipetween andlords nd tenantswas so fraught, nd wherethe relationship etweenthe landandits inhabitants as so dangerouslypoised,especiallyafter heagriculturalollapseof 1815and thecontinuingriseina populationncreasinglyependent none crop-the potato-andeven moreon one variety f thatcrop-the lumper.Itwas the Famine hatoverdeterminedhe once-traditionalistinc-tionbetween andand soil andgaveto ita newpoliticalharge.Twowritersin particular,ames FintanLalor nd MichaelDavitt,made the distinctionbetweenthese termsa central eatureof theirpolitical rograms.neffect,ownershipof the soil was interpretedythemas a national ight; wner-shipof the landwas an individuallaim. nhispamphlet omeSuggestionsfor a FinalSettlementof the LandQuestion 1902),Davittadmittedhathis"plan f LandNationalization"adfailed:"Theplanwas eitherdisliked,or misunderstood,r the principlen which trested-national,as againstindividual,ordship fthesoil-did notappeal o thestronghumandesireorpassionto hold he landas "owner" hich s so inherentnCelticnature.""17In addition,Parnelland the IrishParliamentaryartyhad listenedto thewishes of the tenant armers,"thepreponderantoliticalorcein Ireland":"Thecountryhas remained . . overwhelminglyor an 'occupierowner-16. EdmundBurke,Reflections on the Revolutionn France,ed. John GrevilleAgardPocock(IndianapolisndCambridge:HackettPublishingCompany,1987), 160 ff. Simi-larviews were expressed, fromdifferentpoliticalpositions,by Joseph de Maistre,Lessoir6es de Saint-P6tersburg,u Entretiens ur le gouvernement emporelde la provi-dence (Paris,1821)andbyCharlesFrancoisMarie omte de R6musat,Politiqueib6rale,ou fragmentspourservira la d6fense de la R6volution rancaise Paris,1860).17. MichaelDavitt,Some Suggestionsfora FinalSettlement fthe LandQuestion 1902),12. See Seamus Deane, ed., "PoliticalWritings nd Speeches, 1850-1918," in FDA,2:280.


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128 boundary/ Fall1994ship'of the land as againstthe 'national wnership'which FintanLalorpassionatelypleadedforafter he greatFamine,and whichI have urgedalmost nvainupon heacceptanceof theNationalistsf mytime."18 avittis referring ere to FintanLalor'samous etterof 19 April1847 to GavanDuffy, ditorof TheNation, whichpublishedton the 24 Aprilunder hetitle"ANew Nation"),nd hisarticle nthe firstnumber f The IrishFelonnewspaper 24June,1848), nbothof whichhe warnedhe Irish andlordsto commit hemselves to Ireland,o their enantry, nd to the new SocialConstitutionhathe proposedor hecountry,rtoperish.Whathe called nthe 1848essay "the irstgreatArticle fAssociationnthe NationalCove-nantororganizeddefense and armedresistance"s described na famouspassage:

On a widerfighting ield,withstrongerpositionsand greaterre-sources thanareafforded ythepaltry uestionof Repeal,mustweclose for ourfinalstrugglewithEngland, r sinkand surrender. re-land herown-Ireland herown,and alltherein,rom he sod to thesky.Thesoilof Irelandor he peopleof Ireland,o haveand to holdfromGod alone whogave it-to have and to hold o them and theirheirs forever,withoutuit orservice,faithorfealty,rentor render,to anypowerunderHeaven.Froma worsebondage hanthe bond-age of anyforeigngovernment,roma dominionmoregrievousandgrindinghan the dominion f Englandn its worstdays-from thecruellest yrannyhateveryet laid ts vulture lutchon the soul andbodyof a country,rom he robber ightsandrobber ule hat haveturnedus intoslaves andbeggars nthe land hatGodgave us forours-Deliverance,oh Lord;Deliverance rDeath-Deliverance,orthis islanda desert This is the one prayer, nd terrible eed, andrealpassionof Irelandoday,as ithas beenforages.19

Lalor's imwas, inone version,grandiose:Not to repealthe Union, hen,butto repealthe Conquest-not todisturb rdismantlehe empire,but o abolish tforever-not to fallbackon '82butact upto '48-not to resumeor restorean old con-stitution, utto founda newnation,and raiseupa freepeople,andstrongas well as free, and secure as wellas strong,based on a

18. Davitt,Some Suggestions, 13:FDA,2:280.19. Cited nSeamus Deane, ed., "TheFamineandYoungIreland,"nFDA,2:172.


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Deane Productionf Culturalpace 129peasantry ooted ikerocks nthe soilof the land-this is my object.(FDA,173)Inanotherversion, twas morespecific.Lalorpleaded orwhathe called"acombination f classes." The movement orrepealof the Unionwas,he claimed,"aquestionof the population";ut "the andtenurequestionis thatof the countrypeasantry."nmerginghemtogether n one enter-prise,he appealsto thepowerof thedistinction etweensoil as a material-metaphysical ossession andlandas a political-legalntity.The nation sof the soil;the state is of the land:Iholdandmaintainhatthe entire oil of a countrybelongsof rightto the peopleof thatcountry, nd is the rightfulroperty ot of anyone class, butof the nationat large, nfulleffectivepossession, tolet to whomthey willon whatever enures,terms, rents,services,andconditionsheywill; ne condition, owever, eingunavoidable,andessential,the conditionhatthe tenant hallbearfull, rue,andundividedfealty, and allegiance to the nation. .... I hold further ..that the enjoymentbythe peopleof thisright,of firstownership fthe soil, is essential to the vigorandvitality f allotherrights..For et no peopledeceivethemselves,or be deceivedbythe words,andcolors,andphrases,andforms,of a mock reedom,byconsti-tutionsandchartersandarticles,andfranchises.These thingsarepaperandparchment, aste andworthless.Let awsandinstitutionssay what heywill, hisfactwillbe strongerhanalllaws,andprevailagainst hem.(FDA,174)

From here,Lalor oes on to attack he landlords,ecommendingheirre-movalandassertingthereby he rightsof eightmillion eopleagainsttheselfishinterestsof a class of eight housand.The laws of the landare, inthisvision,dependentuponthe right-ful ownershipof the soil. Soil is prior o land. Itis actual and symbolic,the moresymbolicbecause of itsclaim o sheermateriality.heromantic-nationalistonception fthesoil,its dentitywith henation,tsownership ythe people,itspriorityver allthe administrativendcommercialystemsthat transformt intoland,is the morepowerful ecause it is formulatedas a realityhatis beyond he embraceofanyconcept.Itdoes notbelongto the worldof ideas;itgives birtho the idea of the worldas a politicallyandeconomically rdered ystem.Thisconstructhadgreatappealfor eft-wing,socialistorproto-socialist,ctivists uch as Lalor,Mitchel,ndDavitt.


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130 boundary/ Fall1994Ithad equalappealfor those who identifiedhe emergenceof a bureau-cratic,heavilyadministeredocietywithmodernityndespoused insteada conservative, eactionaryisionof the nation,particularlyf Ireland,s aterritory otconducive o such rationalizedrdering.As inthe instanceofBurke,whoregarded dministrativeationalizations an unnaturalmposi-tionofinhuman,eometric easononthenaturalonditionsfthe traditionalsoil of France nthe revolutionaryeriod, rishwriters f the post-Faminegenerationandbeyondrewrote heoppositiono landlordismndto Britishruleas a characteristicallyational epudiationf modernity.It s curious hat Davitt houldhavebelieved hatthe "Celtic"har-acter'shunger or andshouldhave made hisdreamof national wnershipimpossible.For he various iguringsf national haracterhatareproducedinthe late nineteenth ndearly wentieth enturies regenerally oncernedto portrayhe Celtas dreamy, maginative,ndifferento the materialworld.It is appropriatehatLalor houldspeak intermsof classes and commu-nities-peasant andtown-dweller,ecause he wrotebeforethe imageofthe Celtwas fully ormed.However,hisverydivision etweenpeasantandtown-dweller,etweenone who is anchoredn the soil and one whois tiedto thepettydisputesofpolitics ndcommerce,wasreadilyecruitednto hedescriptions f national haracterhatwe find,contested, ndeed,butcon-finedwithin ecognizable oundaries,nthe writings f Yeats and Pearse,JoyceandSigerson,William .Ryan,andThomasMacDonagh.20Theapo-theosisof thepeasantandof the Celtreadily llied tselfwith he notion hatthe soil was a sacredpossession, mysticallywnedbythe dispossessed(the peasantry),who were, and remained,he "original"wners,or dis-gracefully etrayedbythe owners the andlords), howere,andremained,the original ispossessors.Versionsof the communal andsystemof ancientEurope,andpar-ticularlyf "Celtic"reland, rovidedhe legitimizingistorical arrativeorthisvisionofsoiland land.ThomasDavis,one of the founders f theYoungIrelandmovement ndeditor f TheNation,providedninfluentialndchar-acteristicaccount nhisessay "UdalismndFeudalism,"ublishedhortlybeforehis deathin 1845.Inhisrendering,udalism"as a systemofcom-munalownership hat survived he passage froma nomadic o a settledagriculturalociety;"the oilremainedhepropertyf thetribe, hough hecropwasthepropertyf thetiller." fter dalism,eudalism: Thenextstage20. See LukeGibbons,"Constructinghe Canon:Versionsof National dentity,"n FDA,2:950-1020.


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Deane / Productionf Culturalpace 131of landed property s to become divisibleamongthe familyof the possessorat his death. Itstill remained,and ever does remainsubject to the willandwants of the tribeornation;but few nations... exercise theirstillundoubtedrightto resume possession."21 The "rank eudalityof the darkages" gaveway to the "modified eudality" f EnglandandGermany; ubsequently,"thefourthstate"arrived-"landlordism."No recourseto sacred rightsof the soilis possible inEnglandwhere "thepeople ... have lost all holdof the soil. Thebulk of them are artisans in the towns."22But in Ireland,where, since theseventeenth century, Englandhad waged "aconstant war"against "prop-erty, religionand nationality," rosecuting its purposes througha series ofland confiscations, a mixedsystem of feudalism and landlordismhad beensustained leading directlyto the phenomenonof famine and mass emigra-tion. No matterwhat may be said about the unproductivityf Irish and,thetruth is that it can support a populationof eight million.Emigration s noanswer. Instinctively,"thepeople willstillcling to the soil, like the infanttothe mother's breast, withthe same instinct and the same feeling."23 Daviswrote this before the Famine took its toll.Emigrationand starvationdid in-deed become the "solution"o the Irish andproblem.Eightmillionbecamefour millionwithina decade. Davis's historicalnarrativewas rounded boutby a holocaust that emptied the land and made the claim to immemorialpossession of itthe more fiercelyassertive.The landlords also had their role to play in this dispute about ter-ritoryand the nature of the various claims to it. As they lost their grip onthe land, they were attacked even by those who believed that they had, orhad once had, a rightto it that went beyond legal entitlement. The bruntof Standish James O'Grady'sattack on the Irishlandlords was that theyhad managed to become "as earthy and dull as the earth itself."24Theyhad, in his account, lost their ardorand refinementand become brutishfoxhunters, people who had come "todespise your birthright.. till the veryclay of the earth is more intelligent hanyours."25The termearth, in such acontext, denotes something much morevegetative and material han soil. Itis pure, untransformedmateriality.Yet,O'Gradydoes have a version of the21. Thomas Davis,Essays, Literary nd Historical,withprefaceand notes by DenisJ.O'Donoghueand an essay byJohn MitchelDundalk:DundealganPress, 1914),54-55.22. Davis,Essays, Literarynd Historical,2.23. Davis,Essays, Literarynd Historical,2.24. Standish J. O'Grady,Toryism nd the ToryDemocracy(London,1886), 38. SeeTerenceBrown, d., "Culturalationalism,880-1930," nFDA,2:516-61, 526.25. O'Grady,Toryismnd the ToryDemocracy,38.


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132 boundary/ Fall1994alliancebetweenpeasantryandlandlords-lateradaptedby Yeats-wholive in another erritory, Celticworlduntainted y actuality, arrativizedintolegend but not intohistory,where it is alwaysdawnortwilight, evermonotonousdaylight.

Anation'shistorys made or tbycircumstances,ndthe irresistibleprogressof events;buttheir egends,theymakeforthemselves.Inthatdim wilight egion,wheredaymeetsnight,he intellect f man,tiredbycontactwith hevulgarityf actual hings,goes back orrestandrecuperation,ndtheresleeping,projectstsdreamsagainst hewaningnightand before he rising un.26Thisis obviouslyYeatsian, vento the uncertainrammarf the firstsen-tence and the premonitoryndicationf the political nd cultural ses towhichthe poet was later o putocculttheoryand its fetish of dawn,twi-light, leep, dream.It s also a recognizablemomentnthe longdiscourseof ProtestantGothic,whichwas, likeCatholicnationalism,lwaysseekingfora rhetorichatwouldbothprovide nanalysisofthepolitical uestionofthe land and itsownership ndwouldalso provide n account hat wouldtransposeits intractableeatures nto another anguage.Afterall, Gothicfictions devoted o thequestionofownership,wills, estaments,hauntingsofplacesformerlywnedand, nitsmostcommerciallyuccessfulmanifes-tation,BramStoker'sDracula 1897),to the storyof an absentee landlordwhois dependent nhis London esidenceon the maintenancef a supplyof soil inwhichhe might offinhimselfbefore he dawncomes. He moves,likean O'Grady ersionof the Celtichero,betweenduskand dawn;but,landlordhat he is, withall his enslavedvictims,his Celtic wilights en-

dangeredbythe approachof a nationalist awn,a HomeRule sun risingbehind he old IrishParliament.Dracula's windlingoil and his vampiricappetitesconsortwellenoughwith heimageof the Irishandlordurrentnthe nineteenth entury.Running utof soil,thispeculiar ersionof the ab-sentee landlordn Londonwill leethe lightofdayand be consigned o theonlyterritoryeftto him, hatof legend.LikeO'Grady'snd Yeats'sAnglo-Irish,he willbe expelled romhistoryo enter he never-neverandof myth,demonizedmoreeffectively, ut also moreclandestinely,hanby a Lalor,Mitchel, r Davitt.Ultimately,hequestionof the landand itsrelationo the soil lostits26. StandishJ. O'Grady,Historyof Ireland:Critical nd Philosophical London,1881),citedinFDA,2:525.


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Deane Productionf Culturalpace 133forceas landlordismadedandtenant-proprietorshipecamecommon,butit lefta deficit hathad to be met.Theterritoryf Ireland,withall itsGothicandallits nationalistraves,withall ts estatesandfarms, ts LandActsandits history fconfiscations,was in needof redefinitionytheearlyyearsofthe century.Exile, he highculturalormof emigration,ecame one of themostfavored trategies or herepresentationf Irelandntheearly wenti-eth century. twas a formofdispossessionthatretained-imaginatively-the claim o possession. Itwas also,ofcourse,a positionromwhicha cri-tiqueof the "peasant"iewof Irelandouldbe mounted. twas, ineffect,apositionoccupiedbywriters f the "townpopulation"-Dublinersuch asShaw,Wilde,O'Casey,Beckett,andJoyce,the mostfamousof Irish xilesinthisregard.For he Dublin,he Ireland, e wroteofwas, inan importantsense, a nowhere,a territoryotyet represented, placecaughtbetweengeographyandhistory.Thesacralizinggency nJoyce,as inthese others,is displaced rom he territory,r the nation, o the actionof representingit.Representation ecomesthe auraticprocess bywhicha placethat hadbeen misrepresented r not represented t allfinallyachieves presence.This is notsimplya meansbywhichpoliticsbecomesaestheticized. t in-volves, first,a replacement f the politicalby the aesthetic,a maneuverthroughwhichsacralitys "restored"o the aestheticrealm romwhich hepoliticalhad filched t. Second, the aesthetic,nowcomplete-in-itself,e-absorbs the political.The onus of distributionas been altered.Notonlyis the aesthetichierarchicallyuperior;talso conferson the politicalhesacrality twould llegitimatelyraveforitself,as itsownpossession. Thereterritorializationf Irelandnthe nineteenth enturyultimatelyeadsto areterritorializationf the aestheticcategoryas well. The linkagebetweentheterritoryndthe aestheticcategorysa reverseactof"colonial"osses-sion,achievedwithinhe discursivepacethat senclosedbetweennotionsof priorityofpossession)andthe disenchantmentfdispossession.IfJoyceclaimsanepistemologicalrivilegeorwriting,Yeatsclaimsitfor Irishwriting.Thisis notto say that Yeatsis more"nationalist"hanJoyce. Rather,tis topointouttwodifferent,utconnected,momentsnthenationalistnterprisenwhich relands a territory,pecific o itselfandnotparasiticallydjuncto England,wouldbe reconstitutedYeats)or consti-tuted or he first ime Joyce) nwriting. eats s,aestheticallyndpolitically,an exponentofhomerule; oyceis anexponent f a radicaleparatism, nothernessthatowes no debt to traditionther hanthe enforcednecessityof abandoningt.ForYeats, he Irelandfanachronisticallyefinedmoder-nityis retainingwhat Englandhad lost inthe process of modernization.For


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134 boundary/ Fall1994Joyce, chronicityranachronicityre irrelevant. heissue for him s spa-tialization f thatwhichhadbeendisplacednthedimension ftime.Historyis not ordered neither inearorcyclic ashion.Instead, t is thrown ntoasynchronous pace, plural ndpresent.

UntimelyMeditationsIrishwritings, inevitably,rowdedwith tereotypesorwithrevisionsand rebuttals f them. Muchenergyis devotedto discussionsof the Irish

national haracter.Writings n Ireland,speciallyby Englishauthors,aresimilarlyevoted o thistopic.Thestereotypereezeshistoricalhangeintoa patternof destiny.Itproducessameness withindifference, governingparadigmhat, in effect, reduces storiesto one story.The stereotypeisa productand a producer f history,but,once giventhe bogus ontologi-cal status that racial heory,neo-Darwinianpplications, ndteleologicalhistoricalwriting eadily onferred pon tinthe latenineteenth entury, toperatedas an explanationor historical iversity.twas a key to all themythologies ndallthe histories f Europe nd,indeed,of theworld.Whileitbelongedto the realmof culture,tdid so ina curiousway,for it was sofundamentalo culture hatitseemed, and was often takento be, partofnature,an element nthe givenorderof things.Thestereotypecouldalsobe readmuch ess benignly s a set ofoutwornonventionso which ndi-vidualsor groupssurrenderedhemselves.The conventional ersonandthe conventionalocietywerehostile othosewhoexposedthecontingentnatureof theirbeliefs.Inthe romantic ndpostromanticultures, he art-ist,thegenius,theavant-gardentellectual-sufficientlytereotypedhem-selves-became the representativef a radicalreedom hatwas too fluidto be hemmedwithin nystereotypicalccount.Inflectedhus,the philis-tine andthe manof culturebecameoppositionalypes.National ndracialstereotypeswereembroiledwithinhisdispute,which,nevertheless,alwaysmaintainedo somedegreethe distinctionetweena formofrationalityhatcouldbe admirable r impoverishings againsta formof irrationalityrnonrationalityhatcouldequallybe regardedavorably r unfavorably.nIreland,he conflictsdictatedby these termswere the moreintense,be-cause the ideaof national haracterwas initself aken o be a conditionorthe emergenceof thegeniusor manof culture.The twoweresymbioticallyrelatedwithin he anticolonial elticmyth.Yet, heywere also necessarilyopposedwithinhecorresponding ythofthephilistinendthe manofcul-ture, especially as the philistine had been so resoundingly associated by


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Deane Productionf Culturalpace 135MatthewArnoldwith he bad civilizationf the Englishmiddle lasses.27 nIreland,venmore han nEngland, rance, rGermany,he middle lasseshad to be demonizedso that the imperialivilizationheywere assumedto represent ouldbe humiliatedulturally.eatsconsistently peaksoftheweakcultureof the IrishCatholicmiddle lass thatwas irresistibly ovingtowardpolitical ndeconomic ontrol.AndJoyce,therepresentativeuthorof thatclass, emancipated imself nd his ideaof Irelandrom hethralldomof philistinismyexploitinghe intimateelationshipsetweennational ndclass stereotypes,ontheone hand,andthe aristocraticersionof theartist,on the other.He andYeatsbothconstructedmythsofthe artistas simulta-neously ntimate ndexilic,creating hereby visionof Irelands a countrythatwas at once sunkinbathosand backwardness nd also estranged nan alooftimelessness. Ina crucial ense, thecountrywas to be freedfromitsoppressions hrough rt.Nationalityould uperveneoverrationality.The self-creation f the artistas a personremoved n an ultimatesense fromthe conventional as particularignificancen Ireland.YeatsandJoyce, Wildeand Shaw,GeorgeMoore,Synge, and Beckettare thebest-knownnstances.Even he shorthandormsofthe names of some ofthem-WBY, GBS,Oscar-indicate the degree to which hey intensifiedthiscultofthe artistic elf. What amarguing ere sthat hisphenomenonis itselfdependentupon hewidespread cceptanceof notionsof commu-nalidentity-particularlyational haracter ndclass character-of whichthe stereotype s the master ormulation. hisis, of course,a European,andnot a specificallyrish, osition,but tis inEurope,particularlynNietz-sche's writings,hat the connectionbetweennationalitynd the man ofculture s revised in anotherdirection-one that was followed n Ireland.Rather hanconfininghe oppositiono thatof philistinismgainstculture,Nietzscheextendsitto embraceanopposition etween ime-boundednessanduntimeliness.ndoingso, inmakinghe"national"eniusan inhabitantof the zone of untimeliness, e reaffirms,ut na newway,the traditionalrelationship etweenthe autonomy fthe extraordinaryndividualndtheart he produces.The aristocratic rtist s the producer f an aristocraticart-aristocratic nthe sense thatithas achieved hroughhe "pathosofdistance"autonomy,he autonomy f timelessness.The genius belongsto a particularge; buthe also transcendshistime.Thestereotypical,heconventional, emainedockedwithinhe confinesofthe age.27. MatthewArnold,"TheFutureof Liberalism,"1880):"Themaster-thought y whichmy politicsare governed s ratherhis-the thoughtofthe badcivilization f the Englishmiddleclass."


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136 boundary2 / Fall1994

Inracial,national, ndclass discourses,everything ndeverybodyis stereotyped, he rulersand the ruled, he mastersand the slaves, thesuperiorand the inferior. o internalizehe stereotype s boththe ruse ofsubmission o the powerof theorder-in-naturergument nd also the ruseof liberationrom t,forsuch internalizationllows heexperienceof other-ness to be possessed as somethingntheself that s neverthelessrepudi-atedbythe self. Itbelongs oone'snature nd is repudiatednthe name ofone's culture; r,itbelongsto one'sculture nd is repudiatednthe nameof one's nature.Even heopposition etweennature nd cultures, insucha process,recognizablyn instrumentalivision, ne designedto ratify, ya hierarchicalorization, hichneverthelesss susceptible o inversions fmanykinds,the divisionswhichostensiblyderivefrom t but fromwhichit itselfis actuallyderived.Thepositionof the dominantna stereotype sneversecure,preciselybecausetheprestigeof the natural rof the culturalis a mobileenergythat moves accordingo the requirementsf specifichistoricalonditions.Sometimes hese determiningircumstancesre adumbratednthemostcursory-and sometimesparadoxicallyervent-manner.Nietzsche'sUntimelyMeditationss a case in point.There, he Franco-Prussian arof 1870 and the foundation f the ThirdReichare identified s the his-toricalevents that have broughthe worshipof the state in Germany oa dangerousculmination. he fouressays-on DavidStrauss,on history,on Schopenhauer, nd on Wagner-thatcomposethis volumeweresepa-ratelypublished etween1873and1876andcollected nbook ormn1893.Allfouressays are predicated n the existenceof an opposition hat iseternal-in nature-whichthe success of Germanarms has broughto abad eminence in culture. t is the oppositionbetweenthe culturalphilis-tines (Bildungsphilister)nd the man of genius.Thesometimesintricate,sometimesincoherent, rgument boutnational ultureproceedsthrougha numberof variations,all of whichare subservedby thatfundamentalopposition. n heessay "Schopenhauers Educator,"e read:

Here,however,we areexperiencinghe consequencesof the doc-trine, atelypreached romalltherooftops,hat he state is the high-est goalof mankindndthata manhas nohigherduty han o servethe state:in whichdoctrine recognizea relapsenotintopaganismbut ntostupidity.tmaybe thata manwho sees hishighestduty nservingthe state reallyknowsno higherduties;butthere are menanddutiesbeyond his-and one of the dutiesthatseems, at leastto me, to be higherthanservingthe state demands that one destroys


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Deane Productionf Culturalpace 137stupidityneveryform,and therefore n this form oo.That s whyIam concernedhere witha species of manwhoseteleologyextendssomewhatbeyond hewelfareof a state,thatofculture.28InSchopenhauer's ase, however, he "constitutionalangers" owhichhe wouldhave been atanytimeexposed-isolation, despairoftruth,longing-are compoundedbythose "dangerswhicharose fromhis age."This is anothervariation n the basicopposition, ut one whichseeks toescape fromit by alteringts vocabulary, lthoughnot its structure.Thevocabularyfchronicityupplantshatofstate andculture.But he newvo-

cabularyof chronicity ctuallyntroduces nce more he divisionbetweentheeternalandthetime-bound,haracterizinghoseenergies hatare eter-nal as those thatare"untimely."If tis commonly ccepted hat hegreatman s thegenuinechildofhis age, if he inanyeventsuffers rom he deficienciesof his agemoreacutely hando smallermen,then a strugglebysuch a greatmanagainsthisage seems to be onlya senseless and destructiveattackon himself.Butonlyseems so; forhe is contending gainstthose aspects of his age thatpreventhimfrombeinggreat,whichmeans,inhiscase, being ree andentirely imself.Fromwhich tfol-lowsthathishostilitys atbottom irected gainst hatwhich, houghhe findsit inhimself, s nottrulyhimself: gainst he indecentcom-pounding ndconfusing fthingseternallyncompatible,gainst hesoldering ftime-boundhingson to his ownuntimeliness;nd ntheend the supposedchildof histimeproves o be only tsstepchild.29

Thus,Schopenhauerinds he othernessof hisage inhimselfandrepudi-ates thatinthe name of liberation.nfectedbycontemporaneity,e cureshimselfof the effectsof miscegenatingimewithuntimelinessnorder obecome his true self. The essay is entirelydependentupona series ofoppositionalontrasts hatderive rom hestereotyped ersionofthegeniusand the philistinendyetthataredeployedas though heirpurposewas todiscover hatstereotype.Thehistoricalonditioningfthe account s impor-tant,because that s whatsets andenergizes hetheme,but he same kindof arguments availableormanyversionsof such historicalonditioning,especially nthe late nineteenth entury,whendebatesaboutnational ul-28. FriedrichNietzsche,UntimelyMeditations,rans. R.J. Hollingdale,ntrod. . P.Stern(NewYork:CambridgeUniversity ress, 1983),148.29. Nietzsche,UntimelyMeditations, 45-46.


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138 boundary/ Fall 994turewere moldedbythe stereotyped onvictionhatthe strugglebetweenthe philistines ndtheircreation,he state,and the creativegeniuses andtheiraspiration, ulture,was a sociological act. Inpursuit f his adapta-tion of the Schopenhauerian ero,Nietzschegoes on to specify,in TheGenealogyof Morals 1887),howthe supremacy f the "noble,powerful,high-stationed nd high-minded"ver all "the ow,low-minded,ommonand plebeian"was transformedroma politicalntoan ethicalsystem byvirtueof the famous"pathos fdistance":

Itwas out of thispathosof distance hat heyfirst eized the rightocreatevaluesandto coinnamesforvalues: .. Thepathosofnobilityanddistance .. theprotractednddomineeringense of the funda-mentalunityonthepartofa higher uling rdernrelationo a lowerorder .. that s theorigin f the antithesis"good"nd"bad."0

Thistransposedethicalsystem is itself ransposed ntoan aestheticsys-tem bythose modernistwriterswhopromoted ariations n the traditionalthemes of aristocraticloofnessfromconvention nd mass values,on thetimelessnessofart,onthespecialroleofgenius,and,as a countero massvalues,whogave a countering restige o the notionof an "organic"-andfrequently national"-community.hegreat loweringf Irishwriting t theturnof the centurydrawson the doubleheritage f indigenousnationalismand of the Europeanearchfor an authoritarianlternativeo the bureau-cratic tate anditsspiritualtupor.The Yeatsian ombinationfnationality,occultism,aristocraticosturing ndproto-fascistenunciationsf degen-eration,and of the philistinemob is remarkablenlyfor the widthof itsembraceand notat all or hepromiscuityf its elements.He is Nietzscheanand nationalist, writerwhose conceptionof radicalndividualityerivedfromhisconceptionof racial ommunity.

TravelWritingRevisitedSo, it is possible o characterizerishwritingrom heActof Unionothe IrishRevival s having he standard haracteristicsfa minorityr ofacolonial iterature-disempoweredythecanonicalormsof thecolonizer's

discourse,reempowered ythe experimentalearchforalternativeso it,marginalityewrittens a newcentralityr as thecommonplight f decen-30. FriedrichNietzsche, TheBirthof Tragedyand TheGenealogy of Morals, rans. F.GolffingNewYork:DoubledayandCompany,1956),160.


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Deane ProductionfCulturalpace 139terdness,deterritorializationnd even reterritorializationf the major an-guage of the colonizer,heclaim o themodernityfexperienceas againstthe experienceof modernization,he epistemological rivileges hat ac-companyallthese.31But, ince Ibeganwithan accountof Ireland fter heUnionas a placesubject o the various ormsof inspection ndreportwefind ntravelwriting nd, further, itha briefglanceat the relationshipe-tweenthat kindofwriting ndthe literaturef tourism-fromwhich tis notreadily eparable-I should inishwitha modified ersionofthosedescrip-tionsinconnectionwithone ofthe mostself-consciouslyiteraryrtifacts fthe Revival, oyce'sPortraitf the Artist s a YoungMan.First, tneeds to be repeatedhatemigrationrom relandnthe half-centuryafter he Famine andbeyond) s a centraleatureof the country'sexperience.Second, political xilewas one of its mostpublicized xperi-ences; transportationoAustralia,ong ailsentences inEngland, nforcedexile in Europebeingthe standardBritishmethodof exporting edition,appliedparticularlyoYoung relanders, enians,andmembersofthe IrishRepublicanBrotherhood.hird,iteraryxile,although ftenrooted neco-nomicneed orambition,s distinguishedrom hese inthat tgenerallywasconstruedas an act of liberationroma countryhatwas too poor, oo be-nighted, oo backwardo support he cultural equirementsf those wholeft.Exileas a condition ouldbetransmuted henabroad ntoa versionofdebonair etachmentromheadopted ountry.Wilde ndShaw nEnglandandGeorgeMoorenFrance nd nEnglandreobvious xamples.Further,Irelandtselfwas oftenrepresented s a place hatwas inexilefrom tself-from tslanguage, tsheroicpast,itsCeltic pirit,tsoncecentralEuropeanpositionas the Island f SaintsandScholars.Finally,xilewas a conditionthatcouldbe experiencedeven bythose whostayedinthe country.Theinternal migre s a recurrentigure n Irishwriting,withStephenDedalusas itsmostprominentmbodiment.Other onditions fseparationrom hehomelandproliferate,eforeandafter he Famine-the absenteelandlord,thevagrant,he revenant fGothiciction.Yet,exileis notat allanoutright31. See Gilles Deleuze and FelixGuattari,Kafka:pourune litt6raturemineure(Paris:Minuit,1975), "WhatIs a MinorLiterature?"MississippiReview 11 (1983): 13-33, AThousandPlateaus,trans. BrianMassumi London:TheAthlonePress, 1988), 100-10;AbdulJanMohamed,"HumanismndMinority iterature:oward Definition f Counter-hegemonicDiscourse,"boundary2 12/13 (1984):295-98; HomiK.Bhabha,ed., NationandNarrationLondon nd NewYork:Routledge,1990);Marilyn andall,"Appropriate(d)Discourse:Plagiarismand Decolonization," ew LiteraryHistory22, no. 3 (Summer1991):525-39.


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140 boundary/ Fall 994formofderacination.t s also a positionromwhich hecountry an be sur-veyed(inmemory,hrough evisiting)nd nwhich tsfamiliarityanbe bothaffirmed ndestranged.It s possibleto see in IrishRevival iterature-inSynge'sreturnromParis o Wicklownd heWest, nYeats's huttling ackandforthbetweenLondon,Oxford,Dublin, ndSligo,inGeorgeMoore'sexperimental evisiting f Irelando savor the possibilities f its revivalistspirit,nJoyce'sfascinationwith hecityandthecountryhathe refused orevisitafter1912-a new formof culturalourism, rediscovery ynativesof the country hey had abandonedorthat had abandoned hem. Irelandbecame a newculturalpace whenitwas refigureds the placethat hadto be retrieved nd reintegrated ithworld ulturehroughhe mediationof art. Inanalogousfashion, t hadpreviously een inspected n order oreintegratet fullywithin he UnitedKingdom.rishmodernity daptsthediscourseof inspection, etrieval,ndtourism othe requirementsf an artthatis at once native nits substanceandcosmopolitannits form.Inthe fifthchapterof Portrait,o fertile n its variousinvocationsof Stephen'ssense of estrangementromIreland,Dublin,he Englishan-guage, hisfellow tudents, here is a passage in which heyoungprotago-nist recallshisfriendshipwith"thepeasantstudent,"Davin.This is one ofa series of flashbackshatpunctuates isprogress romhis homeinNorthDublino UniversityCollegeon Stephen'sGreen,where he willhavetheencounterwith he DeanofStudiesand,later,withMcCann,he proponentof universalpeace. In he walk,he hasjustpassedTrinity ollegeandthenearbystatueof ThomasMoore,"thenationalpoet of Ireland,"he veryimageof Irish ervility, aFirbolgnthe borrowedloak of a Milesian"-that s, an uncouth riginalnhabitantnthedressof a later,morecultivatedinvader.Hisdescriptions f Mooreand of Davinare of a piece, andtypi-cal,of Stephen'sconstant ransactions etweenpersonalassociationsandhistoricalcons.Herecalls ittingnDavin's oomswhere"therudeFirbolgmindof his listener" ad,inlisteningo Stephen'srepetitionf "theversesand cadences ofotherswhichwerethe veils of hisownlonginganddejec-tion," lternatelyrawnStephen'smind o "it"hisdejection?) rrepelledt:"bya grossness of intelligencera bluntness ffeelingorbya dullstareofterrorntheeyes, theterror f soulofa starvingrish illagenwhich he cur-few was stilla nightlyear."32Davinhad been taughtby MichaelCusack,the modelforthe Citizen nthe "Cyclops"pisodeof Ulysses,founderof32. James Joyce, A Portrait f the Artistas a YoungMan,ed. Seamus Deane (London:Penguin,1992),195.This work s hereafter itedinmytext as Portrait.


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Deane ProductionfCulturalpace 141the GaelicAthleticAssociation,a nationalistportsorganization evotedto the renewalof the "ancient"rish ames of hurling ndGaelicfootball.He was also entrancedbystoriesof hisuncle,MatDavin,a cofounderwithCusackof the GAA,and a renowned thlete.Further, e "worshippedhesorrowfulegendof Ireland." e had the reputationn college of beingaFenian.(Davinwas modeledon Joyce'scontemporaryt UniversityCol-lege, GeorgeClancy 1879-1921], aterLordMayor f Limerick, ho wasmurdered ythe notoriousBritishArmy egiment,he BlackandTans.)Hehadbeentaught rish yhisnurse,whohadalso"shapedhisimaginationythe brokenightsof Irishmyth." owardhismyth"uponwhichnoindividualmindhad ever drawnout a line of beauty," e had the same attitudeastowardhe RomanCatholic eligion: theattitude f a dullwittedoyal erf."Davinwas, byrote,hostile o all thatcame to him romEngland rEnglishculture; f the worldbeyond,"he knewonlythe foreign egionof Franceinwhichhe spokeof serving."Thusfar,Davinhas been characterized s"thepeasantstudent"whopossesses a "rudeFibolgmind."Now he earnsanothernickname romStephen,on accountofhis ambitiono serve intheFrenchForeignLegion-something hatJohnDevoy, hieforganizer f theIrishRepublicanBrotherhoodnd the best-knownrish-Americanenianhadactuallydone:

Couplinghis ambitionwiththe youngman'shumorStephenhadoftencalledhimoneof the tamegeese: and herewas even a point firritationnthe namepointed gainst hatveryreluctance f speechand deed in his friendwhichseemed so often to stand betweenStephen'smind,eagerof speculation, ndthe hiddenwaysof Irishlife.(Portrait,96)TheWildGeese was thenameappliedo theIrishCatholic fficerswhofledto Europeafter he Treaty f Limerickn1691.Theyservedinthe French,Spanish,andAustrianArmies,usuallyas separately onstituted rishBri-gades, andtheirbattledeeds against heEnglishnvariousEuropeanwarsweremuchcelebratednIrishnationalistropaganda. ocall Davinone ofthe tamegeese is, thus,a sharp ibe;but tis Davin'snertiahatseems toblockStephen'saccess to the hidden reland. uch an Ireland oes swimintoviewalmostat once whenDavin ells the storyofthe peasantwomanwhohadinvitedhim o herbedinthe mountain-roadottage.The

figureofthewoman nthestory toodforth, eflectednother iguresof the peasantwomenwhomhe hadseen standingnthe doorways


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142 boundary/ Fall 994atClane,as thecollegecars droveby,as a typeof her raceandhisown,a batlikeoulwakingo the consciousnessof itself ndarknessand secrecy and lonelinessand,through he eyes and voice andgestureof a womanwithout uile,calling he stranger o her bed.(Portrait, 98)

"Thestranger"s a loadedphrasein Ireland,eferringo the foreigner rthe invader;nthispolitical-sexualontext, t s particularlyverdetermined,since nationalist istory laimed hat he Norman-Englisherefirst nvitedto Ireland ecause of thetreachery f Dervorgilla,ifeof an Irish hieftain,whose paramour,MacMurrough,nvitedHenryII o invadethe island onhis behalfand whogave hisdaughterAoife(renderedn Englishas Eva)to Strongbow,he Norman eneral,whoarrivedn1170(FinnegansWakemakes muchof thisas one of the Irish ersionsof the primordialtoryofthe Fall).The wholesequenceis heavily odedwith rish istoricaleferences,butthe mainpoint s that boththe peasantman(Davin)andthe peasantwomanare mysteriouso Stephen.Theybelongto a different ountry owhichhe has no access. Boththeirsilence and theirspeech-includingtheiraccents-are barriers. tephen s a spectatornow,as he was whenhe was a schoolboyon hiswaybackto Dublin romClongowes,watchingthe Irishworld fpeasantwomen romhe train.FromFirbolgso Milesiansto WildGeese to ThomasMoore o the Fenians, o the IrishRevival itsattempts o revive he language,ancientGaelicmyths,and Gaelicgames),the historicalandscapeunrolls,plottedagainstthe geographyof Dublinandthe personalexperienceof Stephen.ButStephen, ormal nd cosmo-politan, s foreign o it. Ifwe return o the openingof the episode,we seethatDavinalso has a particularnddisorientingowerof naming.He callsStephen"Stevie":Thehomelyversionof hisChristian ameon the lipsofhis friendhadtouchedStephen pleasantlywhen firstheard or he was asformalnspeech withothersas theywerewithhim"Portrait,95). Perhapsitis to that"homely"ersionof his namethat, n the uncertain rammar fthe following assage, Davin's esponsedrawsStephen'smindand"flungitbackagain.""Stevie"s the familiar nd the familialormof Stephen.Itis anotherexampleof Stephen's ascinationwithhis nameandidentity-notStephenthe Greek oreignerwith he strangesurname,but StevietheIrishman.t s Davin's"homely"anguage hatstirsStephen,andStephen'sstrange anguage hatstirsDavin:"Onenight heyoungpeasant,hisspiritstungbythe violentor luxuriousanguage nwhichStephenescaped from


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Deane Productionf Culturalpace 143the cold silence of his intellectualevolt,had calledup beforeStephen'sminda strangevision"Portrait,96).As Davinbegins o tell hestoryofthepeasantwoman,Stephen(or"Stevie" s Davinhasjust againcalledhim)turns"smilingyes"towardhim,"flatteredyhis confidenceand wonoverto sympathybythe speaker'ssimpleaccent" Portrait,96).Thus,speechandsilence, languageandaccent,formalityndinformalityf naming,areallagenciesthroughwhichStephen s broughtoa recognitionf hisstatusas an exile fromDavin'sIreland,ustas surelyas Davin s an exilefromStephen's.Stephen'sdeliberateelf-isolationrom he Irish ommunityul-minates nhis laterannouncemento Cranly f hisreadiness"tobe alone."Butas the Davinepisode ends, and as Stephenturns owardStephen'sGreen,his mind tillbroodingn thefigure f theyoungpeasantwoman,ayoungflowergirl aysher handon his arm.Herblueflowersand blueeyesseem to him ora moment"images fguilelessness," orrespondingothatof the peasantwoman.But henhe sees herpoverty ndcoarseness andturnsaway,claiminghe has no money.As he leaves her,he once morefeels hissense of estrangement eturning:

He left herquickly,earing hatherintimacymighturn o gibingandwishing o be outof thewaybefore he offeredherwareto another,a tourist romEngland r a studentof Trinity. rafton treet,alongwhichhe walked,prolongedhatmoment fdiscouraged overty. nthe roadway t theheadof the streeta slabwas set to the memory fWolfeToneand he rememberedavingbeenpresentwithhisfatherat its laying.He rememberedwithbitterness hat scene of tawdrytribute.Therewere fourFrenchdelegates ina brakeand one ...held,wedgedon a stick,a cardon whichwereprintedhe words:ViveI'lrlande Portrait,199)

The Irish evolutionaryeaderWolfeTone, ora timean exileinFranceandAmerica,whose cause was defeated n1798,was an officernthe Frenchrevolutionaryrmies shadesof the WildGeese)whenhewas executed.Heandhis lost Irelandommemoratedythe Frenchnthe Frenchanguageon a tawdry ccasion;Stephen's earthathispovertymightbe revealed oan Englishouristora Trinitytudent-these arepreparatory oments orhisencounterwith he Dean of Studies.But heyarealsoculminatingmo-mentsinthe Davinepisodethat has so profoundlyeepenedhissense ofestrangementromhisownnationalommunity. ven o, hissense ofexileis enhancedbyhisrecognitionf the existence of thatcommunity. ut,as


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144 boundary2 / Fall1994

he walksthroughDublin n this particularmorning, e is a travelern hisown country, placethat has becomebyturnsexotic anddisenchantingto him. Inthe "cold ilence"of hisNietzschean"intellectualevolt," e hasbecome aware of the pricehe has to pay,intermsof communaleelingand spiritual xile,for the achievement f "thepathosof distance."Suchdistance s thatbothof anaristocraticrtist ndof a writerwhohas becomea travelernhis owncountry.

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