Languages of the Night

Minor Languages and the Literary Imagination in Twentieth-Century Ireland and Europe

McCrea Barry

This provocative book shows how the mass abandonment of rural vernaculars (such as the Irish language, Italian dialects, and French patois) shaped European literary modernism. Sean O Riordain in Ireland and Pier Paolo Pasolini in Italy reshaped minor languages as experimental poetic idioms; the decline of the Irish language deeply affected the work of James Joyce; and the disappearing dialects of northern France were a source of complex inspiration for Marcel Proust. Drawing on a broad range of linguistic and cultural examples to present a major reevaluation of the origins and meaning of European literary modernism, Barry McCrea shows how a genuinely comparative analysis can force us to rethink national literary traditions.

About the Author

Barry McCrea is the Keough Family Chair of English, Comparative Literature and Irish Studies at the University of Notre Dame and teaches at the university's campuses in Indiana, Dublin and Rome.

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