Rhetoric and Violence in Northern Ireland, 1968-98 Hardened to Death [Hardcover]

During the Northern Irish Troubles of the past thirty years, a war of words has accompanied and interpenetrated with the actual conduct of violence in highly complex ways. This book considers how literature of the period engages and participates in this war of words. It draws on a range of contemporary authors and on a variety of printed sources, including journalists' reports, political speeches, interviews, memoirs, pamphlets and autobiography. The book places the Northern Ireland conflict within a broad European debate about the legitimate use of force, and provides an original analysis of the inter-relationship between language, literature and violence.Preface Abbreviations Introduction: At War With Words The Iron Circle: On the Core Mechanisms of Violence Equivocations of the Fiend: Self-Deception and Poetic Diction The God of Battles: Violence and Sectarianism Shoot the Women First Breaking the Circle Conclusion IndexPATRICK GRANT is Professor of English at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. He is the author of several books, including Breaking Enmities: Religion and Culture in Northern Ireland, 1967-97, and of a trilogy on literature and the idea of the person, comprising Personalism and the Politics of Culture, Spiritual Discourse and the Meaning of Persons and Literature and Personal Values.