George Moore Sir: With regard to Denis Donoghue's review (1 January), may [ offer the following comments:
I. In 1901, George Moore returned to Dublin, where he would reside for the next decade. In 1898, rather than deciding to conceive a passion for the redemption of Ireland,' he soberly accepted the invitation brought to him, by W. B. Yeats and Edward Martyn, to participate in the formation of the Irish Literary Theatre, for the revival of Irish national art.
2. George Moore did not 'clear out of Dublin' to write Hail and Farewell. Most of it was written in Ireland; the first two volumes were published before he left.
3. 'Barbarian,' moral gangster,' steamroller' etc are terms as gratuitous and fruitless as they are inaccurate. Like the attack on Moore in Yeats's Dramatis Personae, they connote a somewhat deranged impulse to smear Moore's name by making it the object of a street-corner harangue. It is most regrettable that bonoghue's admiration for the poet forces him to misunderstand the novelist. Moore's admiration for Yeats, as a poet, fortunately did not have such nasty side-effects.
1. am preparing the authorised Letters of George Moore, and would be grateful to hear from readers who know the whereabouts of manuscript letters.
Robert Becker DePartment of English, University of Reading
Previous page
