James Joyce's Legacies in Contemporary Irish Women's Writing

by Annalisa Mastronardi

Overview

James Joyce’s Legacies in Contemporary Irish Women’s Writing is a ground-breaking study that, for the first time, explores in depth the influence of James Joyce on Irish women writers, from his contemporaries to more recent voices. With a particular focus on Anne Enright’s The Gathering, Eimear McBride’s A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing and Emilie Pine’s Ruth & Pen, this book examines how Irish women writers have engaged with Joyce’s legacy.

Unlike their male counterparts, who have often felt overshadowed by Joyce’s influence, Irish women writers have embraced and expanded upon his work, viewing it not as a constraint but as an opening to new creative possibilities. This book will be of particular value to Joyce scholars working in feminism and reception studies, as well as students of Irish literature and women’s writing. It offers fresh insights into the evolving landscape of Irish literature and complicates Harold Bloom’s theory of the Anxiety of Influence, demonstrating how women writers perceive canonical figures like Joyce not as rivals, but as trailblazers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781040419588
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	09/10/2025
Series:	Routledge Studies in Irish Literature
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	248
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Annalisa Mastronardi holds a PhD in Irish Literature from Dublin City University, where she explored the legacies of James Joyce’s work in contemporary Irish women’s writing.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Interrupted Silences

1. Women in James Joyce’s Work

2. The Reception of Joyce in Irish Women’s Writing

3. Anne Enright’s The Gathering

4. Eimear McBride’s A Girl’s a Half-formed Thing

5. Emilie Pine’s Ruth & Pen

Conclusion: Reimagining Joyce

In Her Views

Interview with Anne Enright

Interview with Emilie Pine

Interview with Mary Morrissy

Editorial Reviews

"James Joyce’s Legacies in Contemporary Irish Women’s Writing is a timely, deep-mining, and intricate honouring of Joyce’s women, and the Irish women writers who, in turn, honour him. Annalisa Mastronardi is ferocious, factual, and fair in her crucial examination of the absolute centrality of women to the project of Joyce, as man, writer, and influential creative."

—Nuala O’Connor, author of NORA

"This important study argues that while Irish male writers struggled with Joyce’s legacy, Irish women writers embraced his innovations and made them their own. Mastronardi offers a compelling history of critique and empowerment in contemporary Irish women’s fiction, combining a brilliant overview with focused readings of individual authors."

—Derek Hand, Dublin City University, author of A History of the Irish Novel

 

"This wide-ranging and original study tracks Joyce’s dynamic presence in Irish women’s fiction.  Uniting literary history, case studies, and interviews, Annalisa Mastronardi brilliantly shows how Joyce’s works act as enablers for women writers who continuously reinvent and talk back at them." 

—Anne Fogarty, University College Dublin

 

"A work of dignified audacity and interpretative acumen which explores the subtle ways in which women writers have responded to Joyce. For a man who had the reputation of despising intellectual women, he has been nobly assisted by many contemporaries and brilliantly illuminated by recent Irish female novelists and thinkers who take his work as a point of departure. This book scintillates in its exploration of these encounters."

—Declan Kiberd, University of Notre Dame, author of Inventing Ireland

From the Publisher