Scotland's cultural nationalism had strengthened the Union, deferring to Britishness and supplying a romantic and mythic element that productively balanced the Scottish Enlightenment's capitalist and industrial leanings (see Harvie 2008, 111-14); (12) Ireland's stronger and now more self-authored convergence of
Celticism, Gaelic revival, and anti-imperial nationalism meant that such "ancient" mythologies, enlisted into violent nationalism in the present, could not be so easily confined to a symbolic level.
And Symons had been unconsciously preparing the ground for the meeting of
Celticism, Decadence, and Symbolism since the early part of the decade.
On the Study of Celtic Literature is Arnold's attempt to delineate the Celtic character the better to assimilate and suppress such characteristics both within the English character, which contains 'hauntings of
Celticism' (134), and within the body politic of the British State.
Dennis and the Tohunga have an appropriated indigeneity, fashioned from Romantic primitivism, transposed
Celticism and Maori dispossession, which enables them to negotiate with the uncanny, tapu' and unsettled aspects of the landscape.
The performance of Firetree/ Coeden Dan generated a wave of exuberance that prompted legendary Welsh actor and film-maker Kenneth Griffith to call it, ``the most tremendously exciting thing I have seen on the stage - a manifestation of
Celticism''.
Chapter six reclaims English laureate Tennyson as an occasional writer of Irish poetry, grounding its claims in readings of "Bugle Song" (1850) and "The Voyage of Maeldune" (1880) that unearth the multiple Irish antecedents for Tennyson's "poetic
Celticism" (156).
Nevertheless, the identification of "megalithism" with "
Celticism" is very persistent, as is demonstrated by the popularity acquired by the cartoon character of Obelix, the strong Gaelic builder of menhirs and sidekick of the small and vivacious Asterix.
Part of this movement away from Irish fairy writing, according to Lennon, was an increased imaginative fusion of Irish and Eastern interests: "Although not very aware of the workings of global colonialism or of modern India and its anticolonial struggles, Yeats sought to combat the 'growing tide' of modernity in Ireland with a 'new science based in Orientalism and
Celticism" and eventually, with the failure of any coherent idea of Irish ethnicity derivable from Celtic fairy tales and myths, he "earnestly turned to basing a new sense of Irishness and Celticity on the Orient" (Lennon 287).
(23.) Students of
Celticism and Negritude--and other postcolonial nativisms--are by now familiar with the pitfalls of cultural revivals that recirculate (even if in affirmative form) images derived from colonial discourse.
The point here is to offer the deep history of the tendency in some Marxist thinkers-William Morris and James Connolly--to retroject the utopian impulse to find a "golden age" of primitive communism (in Morris's medievalism and Connolly's
Celticism) in the past.
She also attends closely to the "cultural and historical specificities" of each text and underscores the influence not just of the Gothic but also of magic realism,
Celticism, and Aboriginal and Afro-Caribbean spiritual traditions on the individual workings of haunting and possession.
In effect, he shifted the focus of the cultural debate by replacing Arnold's politically charged
Celticism with his own more neutral brand of neo-primitivism.
The concluding essay on race and music is an excellent finish to the book and should be compulsory reading for those who still harbour unexamined racial notions in relation to folk music, including those who trade on the notion of
Celticism. Finally, notwithstanding the critical observations I have made, this is a very readable, enjoyable, thought-provoking, and interesting book, which I thoroughly recommend - read it for enjoyment and do not pass up the chance of seeing Scott lecture if it arises, he is excellent.
