Paris as ‘Other’: George Moore, Kate Chopin and French literary escape routes

Authors

  • Mary S. Pierse University College Cork

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.37389/abei.v8i0.3719

Keywords:

George Moore, Kate Chopin, Irishness, France.

Abstract

Even by as late as the 1890s, France – and especially Paris – represented what was other for Victorian society. This paper claims that Parisian pictures, as drawn by George Moore (notably in Celibates and Esther Waters) and Kate Chopin (in “Lilacs”), constitute gentle challenges to simplistic judgment and fundamentalist prejudice. Their portrayals are word pictures without the expected accompaniment of an obvious edifying lesson; they are neither overt nor threatening while, with dispassionate balance, they advance an insidiously persuasive case for reinterpretation of Victorian moral certainties. This essay further suggests that the Irishness of both writers may be a key factor in their artistic and modernist approaches.

Author Biography

  • Mary S. Pierse, University College Cork

    MARY PIERSE is IRCHSS Government of Ireland Post-Doctoral Research Fellow (2004- 2006) in the English Department, University College Cork where she has taught courses on eighteenth-century poetry, nineteenth-century literature and the literature of empire. Her current research concerns early literary impressionism in George Moore’s writings. She is editor of George Moore: Artistic Visions and Literary Worlds (Forthcoming, Autumn 2006) and her publications include articles on the art, landscapes, and European connections of George Moore. Other research interests include the writings of Cathal Ó Searcaigh and
    Dennis O’Driscoll.

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Published

2006-06-17

Issue

Vol. 8 (2006): ABEI Journal 8

Section

Fiction

How to Cite

Pierse, M. S. (2006). Paris as ‘Other’: George Moore, Kate Chopin and French literary escape routes. ABEI Journal, 8, 79-87. https://doi.org/10.37389/abei.v8i0.3719