A second-hand life: a resurrection of Iseult Gonne (1894-1954) from the footnotes of literary scholarship

Cullen, Helen (2024) A second-hand life: a resurrection of Iseult Gonne (1894-1954) from the footnotes of literary scholarship. Doctoral thesis, University of East Anglia.

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Abstract

The objective of this PhD is to resurrect Iseult Gonne from the footnotes of literary history through the writing of a critical paper and novel. To date limited scholarship has been dedicated to this writer who is most commonly reductively portrayed as muse to, or supporter of, the more famous figures that surrounded her: W.B. Yeats (her mentor and benevolent father figure turned suitor), her mother Maud Gonne MacBride (a suffragette and political revolutionary), her halfbrother Sean MacBride (who won the Nobel Peace Prize), her father, Lucien Millevoye (journalist and political agitator) and the many literary figures who pursued her, including Ezra Pound, Lennox Robinson and Francis Stuart (whom she eventually married). Despite exhibiting an exceptional aptitude for poetry from her youth, and producing critically sound literary translations, essays and criticism, Gonne’s work has never been the subject of a detailed study. If the myth of Gonne as muse is a fantasy generated by scholarship dedicated to her suitors, the truth of the woman as a gifted writer herself is revealed in the texts she produced. And yet, her potential remained unfulfilled and the writer was consistently branded as idle and unproductive. The critical component of this thesis interrogates the ways in which the mythologies of Gonne were constructed and examines how these prevailing mythologies intersect with those of the more famous figures through whom she is predominantly known. As such the critical component deconstructs the mythologies of Gonne’s life, creating an opportunity for the creative project to serve as an intervention into the myths by constructing an alternative narrative that challenges the previously accepted assumptions. Accordingly the novel reconstructs Gonne’s life from her own writing and archival and historical research, elevating her from the side-lines of literary scholarship and, for the first time, positioning her as the protagonist.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing
Depositing User:	Nicola Veasy
Date Deposited:	17 Jun 2025 13:25
Last Modified:	17 Jun 2025 13:25
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/99576
DOI:

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