Irish Literature And Rebellion Research Paper

Irish Literature and Rebellion In the heart of every Irishman hides a poet, burning with nationalistic passion for his beloved Emerald Isle. It is this same passion, which for centuries, Great Britain has attempted to snuff out of the Catholics of Ireland with tyrannical policies and the hegemony of the Protestant religion. Catholics were treated like second-class citizens in their native home. Centuries of oppression churned in the hearts of the Irish and came to a boil in the writings and literature of the sons and daughters of Ireland. The Literary Renaissance of Ireland produced some of the greatest writers the world has seen. John O'Leary said it best, "literature must be national and nationalism must be literary" (Harmon, 65). Although there is an endless stream of profound poets and playwrights; John Synge, Lady Gregory, Oscar Wilde, etc., this paper's primary focus is on William Butler Yeats and James Joyce, and their contributions during the Irish Literary
However, there is one great difference between Yeats and Joyce. While Yeats never left Ireland, Joyce believed the only way to fully appreciate the troubles was to remove yourself physically from them. This would allow Joyce to view both sides critically. He wanted to avoid the most famous quote of Yeats' "Easter 1916," "Too long a sacrifice / Can make a stone of the heart" (Yeats, 54). Joyce believed that to envelop oneself in the politics of the "Irish Question" would only allow for censorship by both the Roman Catholic Church and the British government, and the eventual death of literature, so he exiled himself to the continent and continued his writings there. "When asked near the end of his life if he ever intended to return to Ireland, Joyce responded truthfully, ‘Have I ever left it?'" (Joyce,