Science, Technology, and Irish Modernism ed. by Kathryn Conrad, Cóilín Parsons and Julie McCormick Weng (review)

Reviewed by:

• Science, Technology, and Irish Modernism ed. by Kathryn Conrad, Cóilín Parsons and Julie McCormick Weng
• Hamid Farahmandian (bio)

Science, Technology, and Irish Modernism
Edited by Kathryn Conrad, Cóilín Parsons, and Julie McCormick Weng. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2019. Pp. xxii + 406.

The common misunderstanding regarding the depth of interest that Irish writers had in science and technology has arisen due to the dominant influence of certain iconic figures, such as W. B. Yeats. Yeats’s powerful and evocative imagery depicting scenes of the “sally gardens” and old Irish heroes has overshadowed the broader and more nuanced engagement of Irish writers with scientific and technological themes during the Literary and Cultural Revivals. The focus on traditional and cultural elements in works like Yeats’s has led to an underestimation of the multifaceted exploration of science and technology within the broader landscape of Irish modernist literature. In Science, Technology, and Irish Modernism, editors Kathryn Conrad, Cóilín Parsons, and Julie McCormick Weng challenge this commonly held belief by exploring the relationship between Irish modernism and emerging sciences and technologies in the early twentieth century.

The first part of the book explores how Irish Revivalists like J. M. Synge, Seumas O’Sullivan, and Emily Lawless aimed to reconcile religious and scientific experiences, suggesting reenchantment through scientific observation. It also discusses John Eglinton’s role in advocating for cosmopolitanism and modernity during the Irish Literary Revival. Transitioning to the 1916 Easter Rising, this part examines the impact of everyday life, cinema, and media technologies, emphasizing tableau vivant, montage, and film in shaping contemporary representations.

The second part examines Tom Greer’s technological concepts, like mechanical wings and print media, and their influence on James Joyce, with a particular focus on the protagonist of Ulysses, Stephen Dedalus, emphasizing their shared concern for the effects of scientific discourse on human interaction. It then shifts to Yeats, exploring his avant-garde use of theater technology, particularly scenography, as a deliberate break from conventional realism and English cultural materialism. A chapter on Elizabeth Bowen concludes this part by challenging the tech-tradition dichotomy, portraying gadget interactions and entrepreneurial pursuits in the travel industry as integral to her characters’ morality.

Part 3 investigates the impact of gramophones and radio on Lennox Robinson’s play Portrait (1925), serving as a metaphor for postindependence Ireland’s psychological strain. This part shifts to Joyce, exploring his adaptation to the evolving media landscape through gramophone recordings and the challenges faced during radio’s transitional period. It ends with Denis Johnston’s engagement with radio and its unique dramas, highlighting technological challenges and collaborative dynamics in broadcasting. [End Page 1050]

The fourth part examines the intersection of medicine and literature in Joyce’s Ulysses, focusing on the significance of the heart as an organ, Yeats’s problematic fascination with eugenics, proposing limits on education for specific individuals and expressing worries about a decline in those he deemed superior in Irish society, and Samuel Beckett’s paradoxical stance on biology, particularly his minimal engagement with Darwinian evolution, reflecting a distinct existential inquiry beyond traditional scientific discourse.

Part 5 explores Yeats’s and Beckett’s incorporation of new physics. Yeats combined science and the occult for ghostly themes, while Beckett explored light and time using minimalistic stage elements. The chapter then delves into the broader influence of relativity and quantum physics, disrupting traditional scientific certainties and introducing uncertainty. A look at John Banville’s science tetralogy further extends this dialogue, reshaping narrative structures and the literature-science-time relationship in Irish modernism within the evolving scientific landscape.

One of the book’s most significant contributions is its challenge to the prevalent stereotype that Irish modernism was inherently anti-scientific and Luddite in its orientation. It highlights the intellectual richness of Irish modernist thought, portraying science and technology not as adversaries but as integral components of the creative landscape. Encouraging readers to embrace interdisciplinary modernist studies, the book reevaluates Irish modernism, shedding light on previously underexplored facets and offering a nuanced understanding of the relationship between tradition and innovation, the local and the global, and the poetic and the scientific. This addition to Irish modernism expands horizons, inviting readers to...