William Carleton, the Authentic Voice

Download or read book William Carleton, the Authentic Voice written by Gordon Brand and published by Irish Literary Studies. This book was released on 2006 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The William Carleton Summer School is one of the most important literary festivals on the island in that there are very few that make a point of studying an aspect of Ireland before the Great Famine. William Carleton (1794-1869) is the greatest author to have written about the Irish peasant and the Ireland of the period immediately preceding it: he enables the reader to think back past the Famine into the culture - particularly the peasant culture - of that time, confused, rich, tortured, bilingual, that made him as a writer. Enjoying immense popularity during his lifetime, his popularity dwindled but a century after his death it began to revive, not least because of the influence of the Summer School. The lectures given at the School and revised for publication in William Carleton, The Authentic Voice provide ample evidence that he was one of the greatest entertainers of Irish literature in English.