The Irish writer George Moore (1852-1933) was a very significant and often controversial figure on the literary stages of Paris, London and Dublin at a key cultural moment. Between 1880 and 1931, his creative involvements included spells with literary theatres in London and Dublin, jousts with the daring and repression of the fin de siecle, and a hail-and-farewell to Yeats and the Irish Revival. This collection of essays offers fresh insights into diverse elements of his oeuvre and reflects some of the wide variety in Moore's literary innovations, influences and legacy. Contributors note his pioneering contributions to the short story, his penetrating insights into Greek classical literature, his avant-garde feminism and egalitarianism, and - what may surprise 21st-century readers of biblical-theme blockbusters - his sensitive but contentious novelistic treatment of the historical Jesus. In this volume, there are studies of sophisticated composition, and fresh approaches to textual analysis. The multiple Moore talents are scrutinised, myths are dispelled and new evidence is uncovered for historic linkages. George Moore's anticipation of Freudian psychological insights and his engagement with Darwinian theses are but two of his close involvements with key nineteenth-century figures. Manet, Degas, Parnell, Kant, Maupassant, Gladstone, Zola, Marx and Woolf must feature on the list of names that are inseparable from Moore's life and work. Yeats and Joyce also loom large and their under-acknowledged indebtedness to Moore poses difficult questions for literary history. While Moore's own debt to French artistic influences, English models, and Irish heritage has long been recognised, perceptions of Moore's writing from outside the Anglophone world highlight issues that demand further consideration. This multi-faceted author is well-served by these new studies that, in turn, suggest additional avenues yet to be explored.
About the Author: Mary Pierse has taught 17th and 18th-century poetry and late 19th-century prose in the Department of English, UCC, Cork where she is IRCHSS Government of Ireland Post-Doctoral Research Fellow (2004-2006). Organiser of the first international and tri-lingual Moore conference in 2005, her current research is focused on Literary Impressionism and gender depiction in Moore's novels. Publications include articles on the art, landscapes, literary complexity and European connections of George Moore, and on the poetry of Cathal O'Searcaigh and Dennis O'Driscoll.