A. N. Jeffares (1920-2005)

Note: Derry Jeffares’ Commentary on the Collected Poems (1968) and W. B. Yeats: A New Life (1988) have provided much material for the Yeats pages of this website. (BS: RICORSO.)

See obituaries ...
John Sutherland (Guardian)	Peter Van der Kamp.	[unsigned], The Scotsman.

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Ariel: Journal of International Literature in English (1970- ): An archive of Ariel is held at Calgary University, where the journal is currenty edited. The 3rd Issue was devoted to Irish writing and included articles by Brendan Kennelly, John Kelly, Andrew Parkin, Stanley Weintraub, and Robert J. Jordan, with a poem by Kennelly, and poem-translations by Timothy Brownlow, Austin Clarke, Padraic Colum, Patrick Galvin, Robert Graves, Bryan Guinness, John Hewitt, Brendan, Kennelly, Michael Longley, Seán Lucy, Hugh Maxton, Patrick McCann, Justin McCarthy, Hugh McKinley, John Montague, Lorna Reynolds - online [accessed 21.05.2011]. There is a copy under Journals in RICORSO Authors A-Z [attached].

Anglo-Irish Literature [Macmillan History of Literature], 3 vols. (London: Macmillan 1982), 349pp., ill [16pp. of pls. incl. facsims., ports.], and Do. (NY:: Schocken Books 1982), vi, 349pp. CONTENTS: Editor’s Preface; Introduction. PART 1: THE COMPLEX TRADITION. Irish and Norman Early Writings. PART 2: COLONIAL AND ASCENDANCY. The Early Eighteenth Century; The Later Eighteenth Century. PART 3: THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. From the Act of Union to the fall of Parnell 1800-91. The First Quarter; The Second Quarter; After the Famine; Ends and Beginnings. PART 4: MODERN POETRY. Twilight to Twentieth Century; William Butler Yeats; The Celtic Twilight; Douglas Hyde and AE; A New Generation; Ancient and Modern. PART 5: MODERN FICTION. From George Moore to Brian Moore; George Moore; Ireland Seen Through Different Attitudes; James Joyce; Lesser Talents; A Middle State; Irish-Centred Fiction; Idiosyncratic Innovators; Forties to Eighties. PART 6: MODERN DRAMA. Shaw to Beckett; George Bernard Shaw; The Earlier Abbey Dramatists; O’Casey and the Twenties; The Thirties Onwards; Samuel Beckett. Appendices. Select Bibliography. Chronological Table. Index.

An Irish Childhood: An Anthology, ed., with Anthony Kamm (London: Collins 1987), 384pp. Contains passages from Boy Deeds of Cuchulain, Lady Gregory; The Childhood of Finn, S.J. O’Grady; The Escape of Hugh Roe O’Donnell, from Life of Hugh Roe O’Donnell, by Lughaidh O’Clery, trans. D Murphy; Jonathan Swift, Childhood Disappointments; George Berkeley, Memorandum; John Banim, Kilkenny College, from The Fetches; On Recollections of Childhood, Sir Richard Steele; Charles Macklin - Schooling of an Actor, from Kirkman; A Forward Miss, Laetitia Pilkington; the Mill-Race, Lawrence Sterne; Oliver Goldsmith, The schoolmaster; Mrs George Ann Bellamy, the Faithful Nurse; William Hickey, Water and Other, Sports; RBS Sheridan, Letter to his Uncle; Sir Jonah Barrington, The Great House; Mary Leadbeater, the Child-Minders; Theo. Wolfe Tone, Call of the Cockade; The Birth of the Duke of Wellington; Thomas Moore, the Minstrel Boy; Maria Edgeworth, Master Harrington’s Obsession; Adelaide O’Keeffe, the Kite; Sir Aubrey de Vere, Christmas Holidays; William Carleton, The Hedge School; Anna Maria Hall, the Spelling Lesson; Edward Walsh, The Fairy Nurse; Daniel Griffin, Playing with Fire Arms; Charles Lever at the Front; George Henry Moore, Letter to his Mother; W. R. Le Fanu, Practical Joke; Charles Gavan Duffy [calls Moore’s Captain Rock a ‘quasi history’], Schooling for a Patriot, from Two Hemispheres; William Allingham, Church Diversions; Cecil Frances Alexander; J. B. Yeats; Viscount Wolseley; Thomas Barnardo; John Howard Parnell, Lady Gregory; Frank Harris; G. B. Shaw; George Tyrrell; Katharine Tynan; W. B. Yeats; Martin Ross; Somerville and Ross; J. M. Synge; Edward Stephens; AE; Peig Sayers; Forrest Reid; Gogarty; Lord Dunsany; Sir William Orpen, Life class; James Joyce; James Stephens; Glimpses of Patrick Pearse; Eamon de Valera–boyhood of a president; C. P. Curran; MacLiammoir; Austin Clarke; Sean O’Casey; Liam O’Flaherty, ‘The New Suit’; Joyce Cary; Patricia Lynch; Kate O’Brien; C S Lewis; T R Henn; L A G Strong; Elizabeth Bowen; Sean O’Faolain; Michael Farrell; Frank O’Connor; Maurice O’Sullivan; Cyril Connolly; Molly Keane; C Day Lewis; Val Iremonger; Sam. Beckett; MacNeice; Patrick Kavanagh; Patrick O’Sheas Flann O’Brien; Patrick Campbell; Brigid Boland; M. Jesse Hoare; Anne Gregory; Brian Boydell; E. D. Doyle; Fergus Allen; Derry Jeffares; Iris Kellett; J P Donleavy [Beastly Beatitudes]; Brendan Behan; Adele Crowder; Richard Murphy; Thomas Kinsella; Peter Connolly; John Montague; William Trevor; Séan Lucy; Christy Brown; Edna O’Brien; Brendan Kennelly; Liam Weldon; Seamus Heaney; Kate Cruise O’Brien; Bob Geldof; Caragh Devlin.

Annotated Anthology of Irish Literature in the Eighteen and Nineteenth Centuries, 3 vols. ed. A. N. Jeffares & Peter Van de Kamp (Irish Academic Press 2005-07)

Consisting of–

Irish Literature The Eighteenth Century: An Annotated Anthology, with a foreword by Brendan Kennelly (Dublin: Irish Academic Press 2005), xx, 402pp.  Publisher’s notice: irish Literature Eighteenth Century illustrates not only the impressive achievement of the great writers - Swift, Berkeley, Burke, Goldsmith and Sheridan-but also shows the varied accomplishment of others, providing unexpected, entertaining examples from the pens of the less well known. Here are examples of the witty comic dramas so successfully written by Susannah Centlivre, Congreve, Steele, Farquhar and Macklin. There are serious and humorous essayists represented, including Steele, Lord Orrery, Thomas Sheridan and Richard Lovell Edgeworth. Beginning with Gulliver’s Travels, fiction includes John Amory’s strange imaginings, Sterne’s stream of consciousness, Frances Sheridan’s insights, Henry Brooke’s sentimentalities and Goldsmith’s charm. Poetry ranges from the classical to the innovative. Graceful lyrics, anonymous jeux d'esprit, descriptive pieces, savage satires and personal poems are written by very different poets, among them learned witty women, clergymen and drunken ne'er-do-wells. Politicians, notably Grattan and Curran, produced eloquent speeches; effective essays and pamphlets accompanied political activity. Personal letters and diaries-such as the exuberant Dorothea Herbert’s Recollections convey the changing ethos of this century’s literature, based on the classics and moving to an increasing interest in the translation of Irish literature. This book conveys its fascinating liveliness and rich variety. Contents: Appreciation of A.N. Jeffares -- Foreword by Brendan Kennelly -- Introduction -- Nahum Tate (1652-1715); Susannah Centlivre (?1667-1723); Jonathan Swift (1667-1745); John Toland (1670-1722); William Congreve (1670-1779); Sir Richard Steele (1672-1729); George Farquhar (?1677-1707); John Winstanley (?1678-1750); Thomas Parnell (1679-1718); George Berkeley (1685-1753); Patrick Delany (1685-1768); Thomas Sheridan (1687-1738); Mary Barber (1690-1757); Thomas Amory (?1691-1788); Charles Macklin (?1697-1797); George Faulkner (?1699-1775); Laurence Whyte (?1700-1755); Lord Orrery (1701-1762); Matthew Pilkington (?1701-1774); Henry Brooke (?1703-1783); Constantia Grierson (1703/1705-1732); Anne Berkeley (1706-1786); William Dunkin (?1709-1765); Laetitia Pilkington (?1707/1712-1750); Laurence Sterne (1713-1768); James Eyre Weekes (?1719-1754); Thomas Sheridan (1719-1788); Frances Sheridan (1724-1760); Anonymous -- Edmund Burke (1729-1797); Oliver Goldsmith (?1730-1774); Charlotte Brooke (?1740-1793); George Ogle (?1740/42-1814); Richard Lovell Edgeworth (1744-1817); Maria Edgeworth (1767-1849) and Richard Lovell Edgeworth (1744-1817); Henry Grattan (1746-1820); John O'Keeffe (1747-1833); John Philpot Curran (1750-1817); Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816); William Drennan (1754-1820); Patrick O'Kelly (1754-1835?); The Abbé Edgeworth (1745-1807); Theobald Wolfe Tone (1763-1798); Edward Bunting (1773-1845); Thomas Dermody (1775-1802); Maria Edgeworth (1767-1849); Dorothea Herbert (1768/1770-1829). [See COPAC - online; last accessed 16.02.2024.]

Irish Literature The Nineteenth Century Volume II: An Annotated Anthology, with a foreword by Conor Cruise O’Brien (Dublin: IAP 2006), 534pp. Publisher’s notice: The second of the three volumes, roughly spans the middle decades of the nineteenth century, a period dominated by the enormity of the Great Famine. Its terror is recorded in first-hand accounts and in the powerless yet forceful reactions which this cataclysmic event engendered in such writers as John Mitchel (who in his Jail Journal pits the self against the state). This volume documents the rise of cultural nationalism, in the work of the contributors to The Nation (Davis, Mangan, Lady Wilde), and the response of Unionist intelligentsia in the Dublin University Magazine. It juxtaposes the authentic Gaelic voice in translation (Ferguson and Walsh) against the haunting intensity of Mangan and the non-conformism of his fellow inauthenticator Father Prout. It witnesses the stage Irishman in Lever’s fiction being placed on Boucicault’s popular podium, in his reworking of Gerald Griffin’s account of The Colleen Bawn. It records the rise of Fenianism (in such writers as Charles Kickham), and it sees Ireland taking stock (in the work of W.E.H. Lecky). It notes the emergence of a new literary confidence in the works of Sigerson and Todhunter. It extends well beyond examinations of Irish identity, not only in encapsulating popular writing, but also by incorporating writers of Irish descent who investigated different cultures. [The contents of this volume are not available in COPAC - online.]

Irish Literature The Nineteenth Century Volume III: An Annotated Anthology, with a foreword by Bruce Arnold (Dublin: IAP 2007), xxi, 534pp. Publisher’s notice: The last of the three volumes, roughly spans the last thirty years of the nineteenth century, a period which saw the emergence of the Land League, the dynamiting campaign of the Fenians, and the rise and fall of Charles Stewart Parnell. It witnessed changes in all literary genres. Standish James O"Grady conveyed a sense of heroic excitement in his affirmation of Gaelic Ireland’s literary heritage. Douglas Hyde promoted Irish language and culture through his foundation of the Gaelic League. Writers affiliated with the Irish Literary Society tried to re-energise Young Ireland’s ideals of cultural nationalism. Under the aegis of Ireland’s literary renaissance a new interest in Celticism became manifest. The year after the publication of Allingham’s Collected Poems, W.B. Yeats’s The Wanderings of Oisin marked the emergence of Irish mythology and legend in an elegant, sensuous and highly influential manner. With Wilde, Shaw, Martyn and George Moore he expanded Ireland’s aesthetic horizons; as Yeats introduced French Symbolisme in The Secret Rose and The Wind Among the Reeds, Oscar Wilde preached the paradoxes of decadence, Shaw uncovered society’s hypocrisies, while Martyn embraced Ibsen’s social realism, and Moore combined Zola’s naturalism with the synaesthesia of Totalkunst. Major writers combined to form Ireland’s National Theatre. Pioneers such as Lafcadio Hearn were exploring different cultures, which were to influence European literature and drama. The last decades of the nineteenth century were a powerfully creative period, rich in its literary collaborations, and profoundly impressive in its vitality. [The contents of this volume are not available in COPAC - online.]

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Criticism

A Checklist of the Writings of A.N. Jeffares compiled by the publisher Colin Smythe appeared in “The Living Stream”, being the 18th number of the Yeats Annual [No.18] (2013), pp.239-62 - with an introductory appreciation by the author - available under password at JSTOR [online], or as attached. See also contents of Yeats Annual 18 (2013) - being Essays in memory of A. N. Jeffares - as infra.

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Commentary
Brendan Glacken, ‘Irish Feathers Fly Abroad’, in The Irish Times (19 Dec 1996), defends A. N. Jeffares against Rüdiger Imhof’s hostile and facetious review of Images of Invention: Essays on Irish Writing, in “Book of the Day” [column; prev. Tuesday]: ‘So far we have Professor Jeffares convicted for attempting to increase his fame, and his publisher (Colin Smythe) found guilty of trying to make money. Damnable crimes in today’s genteel book business. / Mr Imhof also takes issue with Professor Jeffares over the “Irishness” of some inclusions in the book. The claim to Irishness of George Farquhar and Oliver Goldsmith, says Imhof, “puts one in mind of the duke of Wellington’s sagacious saying that being born in a stable does not make one a horse.” / I have never thought that observation particularly sagacious. Accurate it may be, but (the fact remains that) most creatures born in stables are likely to be horses. The Duke is a rare exception. / Mr Imhof seems to have a problem with Irish writers who emigrate and fail to return. Certainly, if to do so means losing one’s Irishness, the Irish literary pantheon is greatly reduced. (Joyce drops out for starters, and presumably becomes French/Italian/ Swiss).’

W. J. McCormack, ‘A. N. Jeffares: Distinguished Yeats scholar and a pioneer in post-war English Studies’, in Independent [UK] (4 June, 2005): ‘[...] Jeffares’s School of English had always been positivistic in its general outlook, tending to ignore (sometimes to deplore) the new interest in theory evident in neighbour departments such as Art History and Sociology. The strength of his approach lay in a close attention to textual nuance allied to a keen sense of the biographical and historical significance of Yeats’s words. Some other readers were inclined to reach different conclusions, most notably Conor Cruise O’Brien (Jeffares’s near-contemporary in Trinity College Dublin) who, in the centenary-year of Yeats’s birth, laid charges of political authoritarianism, amounting to a Fascist predilection, at the poet’s door. O’Brien’s essay, which offended many, was published in a collection, In Excited Reverie (1965), co-edited by Jeffares and published by Macmillan.’ (For full text, see infra.)

Hugh Kenner, ‘Whose Yeats is it Anyway?’, in New York Times (27 May 1990), “Arts” [sect.] - a review of Collected Works of WBY, Vol. 1, 6, Vol. 7, and sundry other works, concludes that Yeats’s Poems, edited and introduced by A. Norman Jeffares, with an Appendix by Warwick Gould, is the handiwork of ‘[a]n old-fashioned editor who prints what he happens to like, he has fussed into printed status what we surely don't need: yet one more version, a seventh.’, and speaks of ‘Mr. Jeffares’s eclecticism follows nothing coherent.’

Further: ‘The Jeffares text, alas, is not sophisticated. His textual notes are sparse. Here is one instance: the late poem called “Politics.” While Yeats lived, two versions got printed, and shortly after his death there were four more; there were minute differences among the six. Need I argue that amid 60-odd words from a major poet, minutiae matter? Of interest are a Thomas Mann epigraph (”In our time the destiny of man presents its meanings in political terms” - should that be “meanings” or “meaning”?); the poem’s fourth line (should it end with “?” or “,”?); its eighth line (should one insert or omit “both” before “read and thought”?); and the very last punctuation mark (choose “.” or “!”). / Mr. Finneran’s answers are: meanings, comma, insert, period. Mr. Jeffares’s are: meanings, question mark, delete, period. Two differences out of four. Mr. Finneran has elected to follow what appeared in the January 1939 London Mercury and in the proofs for Last Poems and Two Plays, which is, in his judgment, “the last text corrected by Yeats.” That’s straightforward; decide when Yeats had the last say, then let him have it.” Note: Kenner remarks on the competition between Finneran and Gould arising from their respective editorships of Yeats annuals. [Available online; accessed 11.06.2013.]

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‘The Realist Novel: 1900-1945’, in Augustine Martin, ed., The Genius of Irish Prose (Mercier 1985), 42-52; rep. as ‘The Realist Novel in Ireland: 1900-1945’, in Images of Invention (Colin Smythe 1996), 314-322pp.; Jeffares first adverts to Frank O’Connor’s memoir of the first time he saw Lennox Robinson’s play Patriots at the Cork Opera House and realised with a shock of recognition that the Ireland he knew could be put on the stage (p.314); ‘the way the state came into being was, however, not convincingly treated at first. Writers were too close to it. Eimar O’Duffy In The Wasted Island of 1919 was over-ambitious in his picture, and, as in Gerald O’Donovan’s Conquest of 1920, there is too much debating. Darrell Figgis in The House of Success (1922) was perhaps too satirical, while Liam O’Flaherty’s Insurrection of 1950 is too fragmentary, and succombs too much to over-melodramatic handingly to be fully realistic. Iris Murdoch has recently tried her hand at it in The Red and the Green in 1965 but this centres too much on the characters involved. Michael Farrell’s Thy Tears May [sic] Cease (1963), however, is a deeply personal and moving blend of realism and romance which probably captures the essence of the period better than any other novel.’ (p.319.)

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Notes
Maud Gonne is cited as having told A. N. Jeffares that her leaving the IRB was due to the attempted assassination of Frank Hugh O’Donnell (see Frank Tuohy, Yeats, 1976, p.106.)

Jeffares v. Ellmann: Derry Jeffares’s life of Yeats, being published in 1949, was second in the field to Richard llmann’s study (Yeats: The Man and the Mask, 1948). According to T. R. Henn, writing in 1950, however, ‘Dr. Norman Jeffares’ W. B. Yeats: Man and Poet is the most fully documented study that has yet been made, and contains much source-material not available elsewhere. Together with Hone’s Life it seems likely to become a standard work’, while Ellmann’s Yeats ‘is also based on the examination of much unpublished material, and approaches the problem of the “divided consciousness” in the poetry through Yeats’s relationship to his father.’ (Henn, The Lonely Tower, [1950] Methuen 1965, [Intro. to First Edn.], p. xv.) Thanks are also made to Jeffares’ for help with ‘published and unpublished material, and for his advice’ (idem.).

Conleth Ellis, review of Brought Up in Dublin (1987): ‘lacks cogency, lacks urgency … considerable skill and dexterity [...] doggedly determined to conceal the heart of the matter’; ‘His best poems are not the autobiographical sub-Betjeman ones which dominate the collection but those which take some famous Irish personages of the past as their subject matter.’ (Books Ireland, May 1987, p.100.)

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