Introduction: Sham Grandeurs, Sham Chivalries: Architectures of Aristocracy in Ireland and the American South
Introduction: Sham Grandeurs, Sham Chivalries: Architectures of Aristocracy in Ireland and the American South
This introductory chapter explains the theme of this book, which is about dandyism in Irish and American Southern literature; discusses the distinction between a dandyism rooted in the Regency period and a dandyism amorphously abroad; and uses the dandy figure as a transatlantic harbinger of aristocracy's inevitable decline. The book shows how the dandy figure travelled further than England and France, gaining purchase in the cultural imaginations of Anglo-Ireland and the American South, where writers capitalised upon the ambiguous dandy's performance of gentility and the challenge which that performance posed to aristocratic claims of genetic exclusivity.
Keywords: dandyism, Irish literature, American South literature, dandy figure, aristocracy, England, France, cultural imaginations
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