This book is the first comprehensive critical assessment of the aesthetic and social ideals of Lady Augusta Gregory, founder, patron, director, and dramatist of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. It elaborates on her distinctive vision of the social role of a National Theatre in Ireland, especially in relation to the various reform movements of her age: the Pre-Raphaelite Movement, the Co-operative Movement, and the Home Industries Movement. It illustrates the impact of John Ruskin on the aesthetic and social ideals of Lady Gregory and her circle that included Horace Plunkett, George Russell, John Millington Synge, William Butler Yeats, and George Bernard Shaw. All of these friends visited the celebrated Gregory residence of Coole Park in Country Galway, most famously Yeats. The study thus provides a pioneering evaluation of Ruskin's immense influence on artistic, social, and political discourse in Ireland in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

Autorentext
Eglantina Remport is Senior Lecturer in the School of English and American Studies, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, where she teaches modern Irish literature, Victorian literature, and Modernist literature. She holds a Ph.D. from the School of English, Queen's University Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Inhalt

1. Introduction.- 2. My Education: Sir William Gregory, the Grand Tours, and the Visual Arts.- 3. The 'whorl' of Troy: Celtic Mythology, Victorian Hellenism, and the Irish Literary Revival.- 4. Ní neart go cur le chéile: Education, Social Reform, and the Abbey Theatre.- 5. See a play as a picture: the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, the Sister Arts, and the Irish Plays.- 6. The Light of the World: Christianity, Cultural Politics, and Constitutional Reform.- 7. Conclusion.