The Lie of the Land: Irish Modernism in a Nativist Ireland

The Lie of the Land: Irish Modernism in a Nativist Ireland

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In Waiting 5326058hx for Godot (1953) Beckett draws upon a non-temporal stasis that has paralyzed the nation over the past decades, and demystifies such a paralysis by structuring the play around not only a fixed milieu and an unnamable saviour but also a widespread unwillingness in appreciating the urgency of this dominant spirit of stasis.I argue the roots of such severe pessimism, formlessness, and radical stasis as dominant elements in the works of Irish moderns can be found in a dichotomous perception of modernism and its emergence and development in post-independence Ireland.The rise of the State and their neoconservative politics of formation appear as internal forces that obstructed a proper appreciation of Irish modernism inside and outside Ireland.

By exploring the roots of modernism in post-independence Ireland, and the conflict between modernism and the rise of a neocolonial State, this essay examines a critical and ideological reticence within the nation which considers Irish modernism as a sub-category of the movement rather than an independent variety, precluding a reading il barone wine of Irish moderns in at once a national and international context.