by Matthew Eatough
Modern Language Quarterly 73.1 (March 2012)
Bowen’s Court has most commonly been confronted through methodological paradigms stressing its affinity to traditional... more
Bowen’s Court has most commonly been confronted through methodological paradigms stressing its affinity to traditional Irish generic and historiographical conventions. In contrast, this essay reassesses Anglo-Ireland’s contribution to early twentieth-century literature by rereading Elizabeth Bowen’s text within the context of an international cultural and economic world-system. It argues that two historical narratives inform Bowen’s Court: a gothic chronicle of decline and a protoprofessional story of detached expertise. These narratives correspond to two visions of Anglo-Ireland’s transnational position, the first conceiving of the Protestant Ascendancy as neofeudal landlords who transform Irish labor into capitalist wealth, the second characterizing the Anglo-Irish as a cosmopolitan class of professional managers. By regarding these socioeconomic roles as affective dispositions between which her class vacillated, Bowen creates a cyclical history in which the deficiencies of gothic hysteria and detached professionalism supplement each other in a dialectical exchange. Understanding the socioeconomic circumstances underlying Bowen’s Court provides an important insight into how Bowen and fellow Anglo-Irish writers used affect to legitimate their class position after Irish independence, as well as how they were able to envision an Anglo-Irish renaissance.
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