| Abstrakt: |
The Woolfs record of their 10-day tour of Ireland in April-May 1934 neglects to mention meetings with indigenous Irish, or so it seems. From a close reading of letters and diaries, the Woolfs, particularly Virginia, experienced an unanticipated immersion in indigenous Irish culture, albeit a mediated one. The Woolfs met with Apostle, Celtic scholar and classicist George Derwent Thomson in Galway, an English intellectual with intimate knowledge of the Irish language and life on the Blasket Islands. In Dublin, Virginia observed the cast and crew of The Man of Aran (1934), a documentary of the Aran Islands filmed by the Canadian, Robert Flaherty. Woolf's fascination with the Irish language and the Aran Islands are the subjects of this article. I argue that experiences of immersion in Irish culture, despite herself, led to the realization that Ireland was no country for Woolf, and not only because of Irish loquacity or 'the talk'. Virginia was animated and overwhelmed by Irish language and indigenous culture as re-represented by J.M. Synge, Thomson and the Aran Islanders. Consequently, she understood the magnitude of her separation from Ireland as artist and writer. The distance and barrier created by an oral culture, a vernacular language, an historical and contemporary non-Anglophone literary tradition, continuing conflicts over belonging and representations of Irishness by cultural nationalists, could not be crossed without prodigious investment of time and effort and with little or no guarantee of success. Ireland, in the midst of its own history, could not offer refuge for the Woolfs, personally, professionally or politically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
