He and his wife went on a trip to Italy, where he found a muse in the form of Mrs. Sharp was already a relatively successful author whose books of poetry and realistic novels in the 1880s had progressed to the point where by 1890-1891 he could support himself full-time as a writer and editor. Yeats, Æ (George William Russell), reprints of James Macpherson’s Ossian and the novels of Sir Walter Scot, the fantasies of George Macdonald and Lord Dunsany, the weird tales of Arthur Machen…and, though often forgotten today, the weird works of Scottish writer William Sharp, who also wrote as Fiona Macleod. The Celtic Revival filtered across the Atlantic to the United States in many forms W. Common cause was made between Gaelic speakers based on mutual interest in languages, lore, and preservation of rapidly-disappearing ways of life. The languages and cultures of the Gaelic-speaking peoples of the British Isles was rapidly fading in response to the events of the 18th, 19th, and 20th century spreading industrialization, transportation and emigration, especially after the Great Famine in Ireland, accelerated the decline of the Gaelic languages in favor of English, which had become the language of government, literature, and trade in the United Kingdom-and, before the breakup of the British Empire, throughout the world.Īgainst this decline rose varied movements some aimed to preserve and promulgate the declining language and customs, such as the gorsedds in Wales, while the Irish Literary Revival in the late 19th/early 20th century sought to raise awareness of Irish literature and writers. It was called alternately the Celtic Twilight and the Celtic Revival. Fiona Macleod, “From Iona” in The Sin-Eater and Other Tales and Episodes (1895), 11-12 In Wales, a great tradition survives in Ireland, a supreme tradition fades through sunset-hued horizons to the edge o’ dark in Celtic Scotland, a passionate regret, a despairing love and longing, narrows yearly before a bastard utilitarianism which is almost as great a curse to our despoiled land as Calvinistic theology has been and is. The Manxman has ever been the mere yeoman of the Celtic chivalry but even his rude dialect perishes year by year. The Cornishman has lost his language, and there is now no bond between him and his ancient kin. The Breton’s eyes are slowly turning from the sea, and slowly his ears are forgetting the whisper of the wind around Menhir and Dolmen.
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