General Features and Yeats and Gregory's Treatment
Kathleen Ni Houlihan is generally portrayed as an old woman without a home. Frequently it is hinted that this is because she has been dispossessed of her home which comprised a farmhouse and "four green fields" (symbolising the four provinces of Ireland). In Yeats and Gregory's Cathleen Ní Houlihan (1902), she arrives at an Irish family's home as they are making preparations for the marriage of their oldest son. In Yeats and Gregory's play, Kathleen Ni Houlihan tells the family her sad tale, interspersed with songs about famous Irish heroes that had given their life for her. She ultimately lures the young groom away to join in the failed Irish Rebellion of 1798 against the British during the French Revolutionary Wars. After the groom makes his decision and leaves, one character notes that the old woman has become a beautiful young woman with the walk of a queen. Yeats and Gregory's treatment of Kathleen Ni Houlihan is fairly typical of this myth. The groom's choice — and eventual death in the failed rebellion — rejuvenates Kathleen Ni Houlihan to some degree.
Read more about this topic: Kathleen Ni Houlihan
Famous quotes containing the words general, features, yeats, gregory and/or treatment:
“We ought, says Kant, to become acquainted with the instrument, before we undertake the work for which it is to be employed; for if the instrument be insufficient, all our trouble will be spent in vain. The plausibility of this suggestion has won for it general assent and admiration.... But the examination can be only carried out by an act of knowledge. To examine this so-called instrument is the same as to know it.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“Art is the child of Nature; yes,
Her darling child, in whom we trace
The features of the mother’s face,
Her aspect and her attitude.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)
“What images are these
That turn dull-eyed away,
Or shift Time’s filthy load,
Straighten aged knees,
Hesitate or stay?
What heads shake or nod?”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“when her husband came,
complaining about the tobacco spit on him,
they decided to run North
for a free evening.”
—Carole Gregory Clemmons (b. 1945)
“Any important disease whose causality is murky, and for which treatment is ineffectual, tends to be awash in significance.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)