“A quiet renewal”. Tendenze religiose nella letteratura irlandese contemporanea

Abstract

The interpretation of Irish literary experience (however defined) should not forget that, as Robert Welch has observed, “the religious instinct is a permanent feature of Irish writing”. This essay offers both some introductory methodological remarks about the relationships between literature (in English) and religion, and the analysis of a reasoned selection of effects produced by Welch’s “religious instinct” on the ‘writing practice’ of a series of emblematic texts of Irish origin: e.g., a speech by Mary McAleese (a former President of the Republic of Ireland) and some relevant passages from works written by Irish writers in the last decades (Michael Longley, Frank McCourt, Roddy Doyle, Sebastian Barry, Joseph O’Connor, Seamus Heaney et al.).