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Loading... Lady Gregory's Toothbrush (edition 2011)by Colm Toibin
Work InformationLady Gregory's Toothbrush by Colm Tóibín
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Whilst undoubtedly well-written (I love Colm Toibin), I just wasn't interested in the story - and despite the enormous contribution to arts and theatre, left the book not liking Lady Gregory and really not liking Yeats. ( ) This was a fairly good summary of Lady Gregory's influence on Irish theatre and the nationalistic movement. I was a bit surprised at how anti-feminist this woman was. She seemed not only to distrust but to dislike other women. Nevertheless, she played a major role in the resurrection of Irish literature and culture, and she was friend and patron to Yeats, Singh, O'Casey and others. I found this readable and amusing. Toibin is very good. He focuses mainly on the way that Lady Gregory (and Yeats too) was an Anglo Irish landlord and functioned as such but then also was into into Irish culture & Home Rule. He draws out the contradictions but also emphasizes her contribution to culture and some problems with how she was treated. I loved the story of her courtship. no reviews | add a review
Colm Tóibín's Lady Gregory's Toothbrush is a beautiful insight into the life of outspoken Irishwoman, Augusta Gregory. A remarkable figure in Celtic history, she was married to an MP and land-owner, yet retained an unprecedented independence of both thought and deed, actively championing causes close to her heart. At once conservative and radical in her beliefs, she saw no conflict in idealizing and mythologizing the Irish peasantry, for example, while her landlord husband introduced legislation that would, in part, lead to the widespread misery, poverty and starvation of the Great Famine. Nevertheless, as founder of the Abbey Theatre, an outspoken opponent of censorship, and mentor, muse, and mother-figure to W. B. Yeats, Augusta Gregory played a pivotal role in shaping Irish literary and dramatic history. Moreover, despite her parents' early predictions of spinsterhood, she was no matronly figure, engaging in a passionate affair while newly-wedded and, as she approached sixty, falling for a man almost twenty years her junior. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)822.912Literature English & Old English literatures English drama 1900- 1900-1999 20th Century 1900-1945LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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