This chapter examines the fourteen annual Christmas numbers of The Irish Homestead entitled A Celtic Christmas which appeared from 1897 to 1910 and reads them as an expression of the Irish Revival’s expanding network. With carefully curated literary contents and artwork—ranging from poems by W. B. Yeats, Emily Lawless and Alice Milligan, retellings of Irish folklore and mythology by Douglas Hyde and Standish O’Grady, local colour stories by Jane Barlow and Katherine Frances Purdon to works by Jack B. Yeats, George Russell/Æ, Sarah Purser, Beatrice Elvery, Edith Somerville and Pamela Colman Smith—the annual actively contributed to canon formation. This chapter argues that the textual and visual codes of A Celtic Christmas depart from the compositional codes traditionally associated with the genre of the Christmas annuals as supplements to both English and Irish weeklies and that they rather parallel the style, agenda and unified aesthetics of the little magazines that were prominent at that time. It is also shown that the interplay of social and economic codes in A Celtic Christmas echoes anti-English and buy-Irish discourses well established at the time.
The Irish Revival and Annual Supplements: The Irish Homestead’s Christmas Numbers A Celtic Christmas (1897-1910)
Bruna, Giulia
2026-01-01
Abstract
This chapter examines the fourteen annual Christmas numbers of The Irish Homestead entitled A Celtic Christmas which appeared from 1897 to 1910 and reads them as an expression of the Irish Revival’s expanding network. With carefully curated literary contents and artwork—ranging from poems by W. B. Yeats, Emily Lawless and Alice Milligan, retellings of Irish folklore and mythology by Douglas Hyde and Standish O’Grady, local colour stories by Jane Barlow and Katherine Frances Purdon to works by Jack B. Yeats, George Russell/Æ, Sarah Purser, Beatrice Elvery, Edith Somerville and Pamela Colman Smith—the annual actively contributed to canon formation. This chapter argues that the textual and visual codes of A Celtic Christmas depart from the compositional codes traditionally associated with the genre of the Christmas annuals as supplements to both English and Irish weeklies and that they rather parallel the style, agenda and unified aesthetics of the little magazines that were prominent at that time. It is also shown that the interplay of social and economic codes in A Celtic Christmas echoes anti-English and buy-Irish discourses well established at the time.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
