Class, Sexuality and Nationalism: Identity Building in the Prose Writing of Brendan Behan

• Název práce v češtině: Společenská třída, sexualita a nacionalismus: konstrukce identity v prózách Brendana Behana
• Název v anglickém jazyce: Class, Sexuality and Nationalism: Identity Building in the Prose Writing of Brendan Behan
• Klíčová slova: Brendan Behan|autobiografie|identita|Irsko|sexualita|nacionalismus|společenská třída
• Klíčová slova anglicky: Brendan Behan|autobiography|identity|Ireland|sexuality|nationalism|class
• Akademický rok vypsání: 2019/2020
• Typ práce: diplomová práce
• Jazyk práce: angličtina
• Ústav: Ústav anglofonních literatur a kultur (21-UALK)
• Vedoucí / školitel: prof. Mgr. Ondřej Pilný, Ph.D.
• Řešitel: skrytý - zadáno a potvrzeno stud. odd.
• Datum přihlášení: 26.03.2020
• Datum zadání: 26.03.2020
• Schválení administrátorem: zatím neschvalováno
• Datum potvrzení stud. oddělením: 21.04.2020
• Datum a čas obhajoby: 04.06.2021 00:00
• Datum odevzdání elektronické podoby: 13.05.2021
• Datum proběhlé obhajoby: 04.06.2021
• Odevzdaná/finalizovaná: odevzdaná studentem a finalizovaná
• Oponenti: Mgr. Radvan Markus, Ph.D.

Zásady pro vypracování

Brendan Behan is a well-known name in Irish studies, but more so for his public persona and tragically early death than for his work. Furthermore, much of Behan’s fiction has been neglected in the field of literary studies, the focus usually being placed on his dramatic output. Thus, the purpose of this thesis will be to redirect interest towards the autobiographical and fictional prose works of Behan, all of which deal with issues of class, sexuality and nationalism. Nationalism here encompasses notions of national identity, as well as criminal activity and the influence prison life had on the author. Behan’s prison experience, which he underwent during a formative period of his life, had significant influence on the focus of his writing. Prison is an anonymising force, thus making the search for one’s own identity even more significant. One of the tools chosen by the author to individualise himself was the use of the Irish language. In fact, this thesis will argue that all of the above-mentioned elements function as tools for identity building in Behan’s prose texts. Accordingly, notions of the self will be important for the analysis of the texts, as will the tradition of (auto-)biographical writing in Ireland. Instead of focusing on Behan the showman, this project aims to find out about Behan the writer who constructed his image and that of a particular type of Irishman in his work. For this purpose, a selection of his prose writing will be analysed in terms of how it creates a self, i.e. how it utilises notions of class, sexuality and nationalism to form identity. The underlying idea in this thesis is that any personal story always develops in relation to its environment. Behan, for instance, came from a family with a long history of nationalist activity, associated beliefs thus being an integral part of his personality. Other personal experiences, such as his time at Borstal, have influenced not only his autobiographical writing (Borstal Boy, Confessions of an Irish Rebel), but also his various short stories (After the Wake, Hold Your Hour and Have Another) and his single novel (The Scarperer). For further development of these ideas, works on autobiography in an Irish context such as Liam Harte’s A History of Irish Autobiography and Modern Irish Autobiography: Self, Nation, and Society, as well as Claire Lynch’s Irish Autobiography: Stories of Self in the Narrative of a Nation will be useful. In addition, works focussed on Behan will be consulted, including John Brannigan’s Brendan Behan: Cultural Nationalism and the Revisionist Writer and Reading Brendan Behan which was edited by John McCourt. In order to gain a more rounded knowledge of Behan’s life and times, a selection of memoirs written about and including him will be considered. This thesis will also include a discussion of non-heterosexuality in Ireland, the relationship between class and nationalist activity, as well as an analysis of how all of this relates to the idea of autobiography and the creation of identity in Behan’s works in particular.

Seznam odborné literatury

Brannigan, John. Brendan Behan: Cultural Nationalism and the Revisionist Writer.
Paperback reprint. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2014.
Cronin, Anthony. Dead as Doornails. Dublin: Lilliput Press, 1999.
Goody, Alex, Anna Hewitt, and Nissa Parma. Mapping the Self: Place, Identity, Nationality.
Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015. EBSCOHOST.
Harte, Liam. Modern Irish Autobiography: Self, Nation, and Society. New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2007.
---------------, ed. A History of Irish Autobiography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2018.
Kearney, Colbert. The Writings of Brendan Behan. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1977.
Kiberd, Declan. Inventing Ireland: the Literature of the Modern Nation. London: Vintage,
1995.
Lynch, Claire. Irish Autobiography: Stories of Self in the Narrative of a Nation. New York:
Peter Lang, 2009.
McCourt, John, ed. Reading Brendan Behan. Cork: Cork University Press, 2019.
McCrea, Barry. Languages of the Night: Minor Languages and the Literary Imagination in
Twentieth-century Ireland and Europe. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015.
McGuire, James, and James Quinn. Dictionary of Irish Biography: from the Earliest Times to
the Year 2002. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Ryan, John. Remembering How We Stood: Bohemian Dublin at the Mid-century. Dublin:
Lilliput Press, 2008.