Irish Romanticism, Rhetoric, and Writing

From 1800 to 1830, Irish writers and orators gave a new visibility and viability to Irish literature in English.This groundbreaking survey of Irish literature of the period provides an enlightening and accessible account covering both well-known authors like Maria Edgeworth, Lady Morgan, Charles Maturin, and Thomas Moore, and a cacophony of less well-known voices.Figures from barristers to politicians, from ideologues to academics, and from hacks to ascetics together created a rowdy and flamboyant debate about the nature of Irish genius.Frequently rejected by British and Irish observers alike as overly florid and suspiciously sentimental, Irish writing in the Romantic period gives a fascinating window into debates about the role and nature of oratory in an increasingly democratising society.This is a landmark study not only in the field of Irish literature, but also in wider histories of rhetoric and the Romantic period.