In 'Molloy', Samuel Beckett explores themes of identity, movement, and the search for meaning. The novel is divided into two parts: the first narrated by Molloy, who is on a journey to find his mother, and the second by Jacques Moran, a detective-like figure who is also on a quest. The novel is characterized by Beckett's unique style, blending elements of absurdity and philosophical inquiry.
The novel centers on the life of Dorian Gray, a young man who becomes infatuated with his own beauty and the hedonistic philosophies of Lord Henry Wotton. After wishing that his portrait would age instead of himself, Dorian embarks on a life of sensual excess and moral decay, while his portrait reflects the true state of his soul. The story delves into the duality of human nature, the allure of aestheticism, and the critique of Victorian society, highlighting the devastating effects of evil and debauchery on Dorian's life and those around him.
This book offers a comprehensive study of the Irish Bildungsroman, tracing its evolution from the Act of Union to the present day. It examines how Irish writers adapted this genre to reflect the unique challenges of a colonial and postcolonial society. The book explores diverse narrative strategies used to depict personal formation within a nation fractured by religious, class, gender, and ethnic divisions. It is divided into three sections, each focusing on a distinct historical period and thematic concerns. The book ultimately reveals the rich vein of self-reflexive writing that creatively reworked the genre to expose the fault lines of liberal humanism and imagine new modes of selfhood.
The classical Bildungsroman charted an idealized path of human development—the harmonization of individual desires with societal norms in the formation of a well-rounded, liberal subject. But what happens when this Enlightenment blueprint for self-cultivation runs up against the particularities of a colonial society riven by nationalism, revolution, and uneven modernization?
The Irish Bildungsroman (Syracuse UP, 2025) provides the first comprehensive study of how this quintessentially bourgeois and European genre was transformed and reinvented by Irish writers from the Act of Union to the present day. Through incisive readings of over two centuries of Irish novels, the volume’s contributors illuminate the diverse narrative strategies Irish authors have employed to depict personal formation within a colonial/postcolonial nation fractured by religion, class, gender, and ethnic divisions.
Carefully periodized into three major sections, the book maps the evolution of the Irish Bildungsroman across key historical junctures: the rise of cultural nationalism in the nineteenth century, the revolutionary period and emergence of the postcolonial state in the early twentieth century, and more recent waves of globalization and the reconfiguration of Irish identity. From Maria Edgeworth’s post-Union novels to Sally Rooney’s millennial fictions, The Irish Bildungsroman excavates a rich vein of self-reflexive writing that creatively reworked this genre to expose the fault lines of liberal humanism and imagine new modes of selfhood.
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New Books in Intellectual History 
