The art of writing : the influence of Spanish literary culture on the work of Kate O'Brien

• Main Author: Davison, Jane
• Published: University of Liverpool 2015
• Subjects: 823
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.664402

This thesis examines the influence that Spanish literary culture had on Kate O'Brien's work. There are overt Spanish elements in a number of O'Brien's writings; however upon a closer inspection of both her fiction and her non-fiction, this research reveals how a more subtle influence of Spain runs through the core of all her work and that her experimental writing style is inextricably linked to Spanish literary culture. As such, this thesis illuminates the way in which O'Brien's engagement with the writings of Concha Espina, Jacinto Benavente, Miguel Cervantes and Teresa of Avila provided her with a model with which to negotiate the social, religious and familial restraints faced by a female Catholic novelist in post-independence Ireland. The thesis is structured in four parts with a chapter devoted to the unique influence of each writer on O'Brien. Importantly, the thesis confronts some received critical assumptions about O'Brien. More specifically, it challenges the idea that O'Brien was a conservative writer whose work was stylistically timid and outdated in tone. In doing so, this re-assessment of O'Brien's work offers a new approach to her writing, as it situates her in both an Irish and an international context of writers who are regarded as modernist novelists.