Nietzsche and Irish modernism

Nietzsche and Irish Modernism deftly traces the circulation of the German philosopher’s ideas in Irish culture during the early years of the twentieth century. In doing so, the book demonstrates how Nietzsche’s thought inspired new, disruptive modes of writing, which spoke to local historical circumstances and the predicaments of modernity at large

Nietzsche and Irish Modernism demonstrates how the ideas of the controversial German philosopher played a crucial role in the emergence and evolution of a distinctly Irish brand of modernist culture. Making an essential new contribution to the history of modernism, the book traces the circulation of these ideas through the writings of George Bernard Shaw, W.B. Yeats, and James Joyce, as well as through minor works of literature, magazine articles, newspaper debates, public lectures, and private correspondence. These materials reveal a response to Nietzsche that created abiding tensions between Irish cultural production and reigning religious and nationalist orthodoxies, during an anxious period of Home Rule agitation, world war, revolution, civil war, and state building. With its wealth of detail, the book greatly enriches our understanding of modernist culture as a site of convergence between art and politics, indigenous concerns and foreign perspectives.