ABSTRACT

This paper examines the writing of Irish national character in terms of various contemporary and contested modes of constructing masculinity in Sydney Owenson’s O’Donnel (1814) and Maria Edgeworth’s Ormond (1817). Antiquarian, chivalric, modern, cosmopolitan, reasoned, sentimental, and romanticist vectors of masculinity are examined as ideological constructions fundamentally related to various generic and formal structures deployed in each novel. The article argues ultimately that the relative invisibility of O’Donnel in the canon of the English-language novel is related to its construction of a particular type of masculinity embedded in a pointed and conscious generic promiscuity. By contrast, Edgeworth’s reception is related from the outset to both her construction of a unified realism and a very particular masculine national type, as Englishness. In conclusion, the article notes an instance of contemporary (1816) concern with working-class feminine readership as evidence of an understanding that the politics of gender and representation in the novel have real-world social effects.

摘要

本文从悉尼欧文森的《O'Donnel》（1814年）和玛丽亚·埃奇沃思的《奥蒙德》（1817年）中，以各种当代的和受争议的男性气概模式研究了爱尔兰民族特色的写作。研究了古籍，侠义，现代，世界主义，理性，感性和浪漫主义男性气质的载体，作为意识形态结构从根本上与每部小说中使用的各种通用和形式结构有关。文章最终认为，O'Donnel的相对隐身性这本英语小说的经典之作与它的结构有关，这种结构嵌入了尖锐而有意识的一般性滥交中的一种特殊类型的男性气质。相比之下，埃奇沃思的接待从一开始就与她建立统一的现实主义以及非常特殊的男性化民族风格（例如英语）有关。总之，本文提到了当代（1816年）与工人阶级女性读者群体有关的一个实例，以此作为一种理解，即小说中的性别政治和代表政治具有现实世界的社会影响。