Images of Spain in Irish Literature 1922-1975

Abstract

The PhD thesis "Images of Spain in Twentieth Century Irish Literature" discusses the ways in which Spain and its people are represented in Irish novels, short stories, poems, plays, auto/biographies, and travelogues written in the period between the achievement of Irish independence in 1922 and the end of the Franco-era in Spain in 1975. The analysis is based on the theory and methodology of imagology, a branch of (comparative) literary studies dedicated to the unbiased investigation of representations of foreign spaces in the literature of a given country. Adopting the imagological concept of a foreign country's literary image as a complex conglomeration of different elements, which are very likely to comprise stereotypes that can either remain in circulation over centuries or be replaced by new ones under changing socio-political conditions, I focus on the following aspects which together constitute the images of Spain conveyed in the texts under discussion: the (stereotypical or idiosyncratic) characterisation of Spanish protagonists, the (realistic or symbolic) depiction of Spanish cities, landscapes, and traditions, and the representation of socio-political conditions in Spain during the period under discussion.