SOURCE: McFate, Patricia. “The Bending of the Bough and The Heather Field: Two Portraits of the Artists.” Eire-Ireland 8, no. 1 (spring 1973): 52-61.

In the following essay, McFate discusses how “the complex psychological and imaginative kinships among the writers of the Literary Revival” are revealed in George Moore's The Bending of the Bough and Martyn's The Heather Field.

For all his humor and pose, George Moore set forth in Hail and Farewell! a picture of the Irish Literary Revival that goes far deeper than mischievous portraiture. In presenting his allies and rivals, Moore recognized that they were fighting in a small arena the inevitable antagonisms that beset the larger Ireland. Quarrels, jealousies and devisiveness were the daily order on the Irish scene and the writers of the Literary Revival, so full of larger dreams of unity and fulfillment, were equally beset.¹ Furthermore, seeing others as they saw themselves, they tended...