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ABSTRACT
Eimear McBride’s multi-award-winning debut novel A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing (2013) garnered global attention for its invocation of recognisably “modernist” strategies. Yet there remains a conspicuous lack of academic analysis of McBride’s “modernist” project, as well as the wider cultural and political context thereof. Such a contextual approach may run counter to the recent turn in modernist studies away from periodisation, however, in the case of Ireland, it can be revealed that the argument for periodisation – both past and present – holds true. Given the nation’s 2008 economic crash and resultant identity crisis, as well as its complex relationship with Europe and the UK, Ireland now finds itself in the midst of a second “modernist” moment; one to which writers like McBride are directly responding. Yet, despite these diagnoses, this essay will conclude by challenging the default “modernist” vernacular which has come to dominate both critical and industry conversations surrounding McBride and her peers. Ultimately, the gendered implications of these frameworks risk upholding the historical silencing of experimental women writers.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Enright quoted in Tramp Press, Twitter post, March 8, 2015, 6:25p.m., https://twitter.com/TrampPress/status/574636602653278208.
2 James and Seshagiri, 88.
3 Ibid., 89.
4 Attridge, ‘Reading Joyce’, 1.
5 Attridge, ‘Foreword’, vii.
6 Ibid., ix–x.
7 Ibid., xv.
8 Ibid., vii.
9 Jordan, Review of Girl.
10 O’Keeffe.
11 Mars-Jones.
12 McBride, Girl, 3.
13 McBride, interview by David Collard.
14 Ibid.
15 McBride, ‘I Wanted to Give’.
16 Reynolds, ‘Introduction’, 1.
17 James, ‘Afterword’, 180.
18 Reynolds, ‘Introduction’, 4.
19 Reynolds, ‘Trauma, Intimacy, and Modernist Form’.
20 McBride, Girl, 193.
21 Ibid., 194.
22 Reynolds, ‘Trauma, Intimacy, and Modernist Form’.
23 James, Modernist Futures, 173.
24 Ibid.
25 McBride, interview by David Collard.
26 James, Modernist Futures, 4.
27 Gaonkar, 14.
28 Ibid., 88.
29 Ibid., 91.
30 It is worth acknowledging that this is not the first time the Irish context has been selected as a case study for this kind of exploration. Pascale Casanova has likewise used Ireland as a paradigm, given the country’s dramatic shifts in circumstance over a concentrated period of time, and its resultant need to ‘create’ a literary tradition. Casanova, The World Republic of Letters.
31 Rubenstein, 14.
32 Kiberd, 333.
33 Ibid., 127.
34 Ibid., 267.
35 Frazier, 121.
36 Ibid., 123.
37 Brooker and Thacker.
38 Kiberd, 578.
39 Jeffers, 7.
40 Patten, 259.
41 Haverty, 112.
42 Patten, 274.
43 Ibid., 271.
44 Mikowski, 100.
45 Enright quoted in Jordan, ‘A New Irish Literary Boom’.
46 O’Toole.
47 Murphy, 184.
48 Enright quoted in Jordan, ‘A New Irish Literary Boom’.
49 Tomaselli quoted in Gilmartin, ‘The Irish Literary Journal’s Irresistible Rise’.
50 Reynolds, ‘Introduction’, 4.
51 Brooke-Rose, 55.
52 Friedman, 154.
53 Friedman and Fuchs, 4.
54 Burgess quoted in Friedmand and Fuchs, Breaking the Sequence, 8.
55 Friedman and Fuchs, 65.
56 Fish, 14.
57 Squires, 62.
58 Enright.
59 Squires, 142.
60 Ibid., 121.
61 Ibid., 139.
62 O’Keeffe.
63 Wood.
64 McBride, ‘Revolutions’.
65 Rose.
66 McBride, ‘Sick of having to Live’.
67 Ibid.
68 Rose.
69 Forbes.
70 Fallon.
71 McBride, ‘Revolutions’.
72 Ibid.
73 Enright.
74 James, 2.
75 McBride, ‘Writing is Painful’.
76 James and Seshagiri, 97.
77 Bracken and Harney-Mahaja, 8.
78 Enright quoted in Jordan, ‘A new Irish Literary Boom’.