Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Palgrave Macmillan

The Chinese May Fourth Generation and the Irish Literary Revival: Writers and Fighters

  • Book
  • © 2023

Overview

Authors:
  1. Simone O’Malley-Sutton

    1. University College Cork, Cork, Ireland

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

  • Compares the early 20th century Irish Renaissance and the Chinese Renaissance or May Fourth generation of writers
  • Considers the two way choices and exchanges which impacted on both literatures and politics
  • Debates how the encounter was based on the circulation of Anti-colonial ideals and mutual transformation.

Part of the book series: Asia-Pacific and Literature in English (APLE)

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this book

Log in via an institution
eBook USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access

Licence this eBook for your library

Institutional subscriptions

Table of contents (10 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xxxi
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Introduction—Why Compare the Irish Renaissance with the Chinese Renaissance?

    • Simone O’Malley-Sutton
    Pages 1-36

  3. Yeats and Lu Xun: Postcolonised Modernists?

    • Simone O’Malley-Sutton
    Pages 37-75

  4. How Lu Xun Translated Yeats and the Irish Revival

    • Simone O’Malley-Sutton
    Pages 77-90

  5. Yeats’s Reception in China: How Chinese May Fourth Writers Translated Yeats and the Irish Revival

    • Simone O’Malley-Sutton
    Pages 91-146

  6. Tempests in Tenements and Teahouses: A Comparison of Irish Revivalist Seán O’Casey’s Trilogy of Plays with Lao She’s Teahouse

    • Simone O’Malley-Sutton
    Pages 147-185

  7. Spreading the News Lady Gregory’s Plays Made It All the Way to China! a Gendered Comparison of “Founding Mothers” Lady Gregory in Revivalist Ireland and Qiu Jin in China

    • Simone O’Malley-Sutton
    Pages 187-229

  8. How Was the New Woman Constructed in Revivalist Ireland and May Fourth China? A Comparison of Socialist and Feminist Writers Ding Ling and Eva Gore-Booth

    • Simone O’Malley-Sutton
    Pages 231-261

  9. Irish Revivalist J. M. Synge and Chinese May Fourth Playwright Cao Yu: ‘Boys’ Who ‘Play’ in the Postcolonised Wilderness?

    • Simone O’Malley-Sutton
    Pages 263-298

  10. Did Ye Ever Hear of the Christmas Rising by Liu Bannong? Receptions of the 1916 Irish Easter Rising in Republican Era China

    • Simone O’Malley-Sutton
    Pages 299-338

  11. Conclusion: Transnational Connections—Was Postcolonised Modernist Ireland a More Relatable Postcolonised Model for Chinese May Fourth Intellectuals?

    • Simone O’Malley-Sutton
    Pages 339-351

  12. Back Matter

    Pages 353-425
    Download chapter PDF
Back to top

Keywords

About this book

This book examines how the early twentieth-century Irish Renaissance (Irish Literary Revival) inspired the Chinese Renaissance (the May Fourth generation) of writers to make agentic choices and translingual exchanges. It sheds a new light on “May Fourth” and on the Irish Renaissance by establishing that the Irish Literary Revival (1900-1922) provided an alternative decolonizing model of resistance for the Chinese Renaissance to that provided by the western imperial center. The book also argues that Chinese May Fourth intellectuals translated Irish Revivalist plays by W. B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, Seán O’Casey and Synge and that Chinese peasants performed these plays throughout China during the 1920s and 1930s as a form of anti-imperial resistance. Yet this literary exchange was not simply going one way, since Yeats, Lady Gregory, Synge and O’Casey were also influenced by Chinese developments in literature and politics. Therefore this was a reciprocal encounter based on the circulation ofAnti-colonial ideals and mutual transformation.

Authors and Affiliations

  • University College Cork, Cork, Ireland

    Simone O’Malley-Sutton

About the author

Simone O’ Malley-Sutton earned her PhD from University College, Cork, Ireland. She lived for six years in Beijing, China and speaks both Chinese and the Irish language. She was awarded the Murphy Irish Fellowship to attend Notre Dame University in Indiana, from 2016-2018. Her interests include Post-colonialism and Gender. In Fall 2017 she was the Teaching Assistant for the “Approaching Asia” module at the Liu Institute in Notre Dame University in Indiana. 

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: The Chinese May Fourth Generation and the Irish Literary Revival: Writers and Fighters

  • Authors: Simone O’Malley-Sutton

  • Series Title: Asia-Pacific and Literature in English

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5269-4

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Singapore

  • eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-981-99-5268-7Published: 07 October 2023

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-981-99-5271-7Due: 07 November 2023

  • eBook ISBN: 978-981-99-5269-4Published: 06 October 2023

  • Series ISSN: 2524-7638

  • Series E-ISSN: 2524-7646

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XXXI, 425

  • Number of Illustrations: 18 b/w illustrations, 7 illustrations in colour

  • Topics: Comparative Literature, History of China, British and Irish Literature

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Back to top

Search

Navigation