Touchstones: John McGahern’s Classical Style

Frank Shovlin is Professor of Irish Literature in English at the Institute of Irish Studies, University of Liverpool. He is the editor of The Letters of John McGahern (2021) and is working on McGahern's authorized biography.

• Acknowledgements Abbreviations Touching Stones: Matthew Arnold and the Canon 1 We Other Clerks: James Joyce and the Classical Temper 2 A Walking Mirror: Stendhal, Horace, Nietzsche 3 One lone paperback: Tolstoy and Religious Sensibility 4 Magic: The Centrality of W. B. Yeats 5 Instinct: Douglas Stewart and Sex 6 The fume of muscatel: Yeats's Ghosts 7 Bohemian Rhapsody: Patrick Kavanagh and Generation X 8 Absurdity: Camus comes to Clones 9 Aristocracy: Andrew Marvell, W. B. Yeats and the Curse of Cromwell 10 The Consolations of Nothingness: William Blake, W. B. Yeats and Prayer 11 Deliberate Happiness: W. B. Yeats and the Inner Life 12 Stranger in Paradise: Dante and Epic Style Conclusion: What Then? Bibliography

Reviews'Well-organized, well-written, passionate when needed, and intensely readable... I was thrilled to find so much that is new in Shovlin’s study.' Eamonn Wall, Smurfit-Stone Professor of Irish Studies, University of Missouri-St. Louis