Charles Maturin, The Wild Irish Boy

Christina Morin (University of Limerick)

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Ed. by Anne Markey, Dublin City University
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.4: Irish Writing and Culture, 400-present.
Vol. editors: Paul Delaney (Trinity College Dublin), Anne Markey (Dublin City University), Ian Campbell Ross (Trinity College Dublin), Sinéad Sturgeon (Queen's University Belfast)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1808

Places

Ireland, Republic of (Eire) (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

Charles Robert Maturin’s second novel, The Wild Irish Boy (1808), has been pejoratively declared a “bizarre imitation” of Sydney Owenson’s then recently published and highly successful work, The Wild Irish Girl (1806) (Flanagan 46). Judging from the title, this certainly seems to be the case, leading both Maturin’s contemporaries and later critics to understand The Wild Irish Boy as an obvious imitation of Owenson, undertaken in a bid to capitalise on her success. Owenson’s pioneering novel – now typically understood as the first Irish national tale – responded to the Anglo-Irish Union of 1801 and attempted both to ‘introduce’ Ireland to her new national partner, England, and to reconcile the two …

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1106 words

Citation: Morin, Christina. "The Wild Irish Boy". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 26 August 2007 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=8161, accessed 15 April 2025.]