Academia

"How grey
Is black
When black
Is grey"

J.P. Donleavy
from A Fairy Tale
of New York

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		For details on Donleavy works, see Bibliography.


	Donleavy has not been a darling of academics nor the literary world in general. Although all but his harshest critics admit to the merits of The Ginger Man, few so-called scholars have had much praise for later works. There are some well-written, fair appraisals of Donleavy's work in the index listed here, but much of the list consists of myopic over-analysis and obvious dislike of Donleavy's style and recurring themes, underemphasizing, as is often the case with academic criticism, the emotional-involvement element of the writer-reader experience. Despite luke warm to bad academic summation and mixed press, Donleavy has garnered a string of best-sellers and developed a large following of ardent fans. The degree of his success without support from academia and the literary world is quite remarkable and, I'm quite sure, irritates his critics even more, as well as makes the rewards even sweeter to the author.

		Essays & Criticism on Donleavy Lectures & Academic Presentations Given by Donleavy Courses & Lectures on or Including Donleavy

	Academic Essays & Criticism Regarding Donleavy

	(In Chronological Order by Publication or Presentation Date)

	The New Nihilism and the Novel by Norman Podhoretz from Doings and Undoings, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc., 1958 The Angry Decade: A Survey of the Cultural Revolt of the Nineteen-Fifties by Kenneth Alsop Owen, London 1958 Radical Innocence: Studies in the Contemporary American Novel by Ihab Hassan \| Princeton University Press 1961 Hard Times and the Noble Savage: J.P. Donleavy's A Singular Man by John Rees Moore \| The Hollins Critic, 1, February 1964 No Face and No Exit: The Fiction of James Purdy and J.P. Donleavy by Gerald Weales Contemporary American Novelists, editor Harry T. Moore, Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press 1964 J.P. Donleavy's Season of Discontent by John Rees Moore Critique: Studies in Modern Fiction, Vol. IX, No. 2, 1967 The Artist as Censor: J.P. Donleavy and The Ginger Man by Robert A. Corrigan Midcontinent American Studies Journal, 8, Spring 1967 J.P. Donleavy: Anarchic Man as Dying Dionysian by William D. Sherman Twentieth-Century Literature: A Scholarly and Critical Journal, Hempstead, NY #13 1968 The Novelist as Clown: The Fiction of J.P. Donleavy by Maurice Vintner Journal Article, 1970 Central Queensland University Library, Australia The Evolution of Donleavy's Fiction by Dean Cohen Critique: Studies in Modern Fiction, 12, 1970 A Case of Death: The Fiction of J.P. Donleavy by Thomas LeClair Contemporary Literature, #12 Summer 1970 Common and Uncommon Masks: Writings on Theater-1961-1970 by Richard Gilman Random House, NY 1971 Donleavy Beyond Culture by John Stark Unpublished paper read at the Modern Literature section of the Midwest Modern Language Association meeting in Detroit, Michigan November 1971 Singed by an Impudent Fire: The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B by J.P. Donleavy by Donald E. Morse. Unpublished paper read at the Modern Literature section of the Midwest Modern Language Association meeting in Detroit, Michigan November 1971 The Evolution of Donleavy's Hero by Dean Cohen Critique: Studies in Modern Fiction, Vol. XII, No. 3, 1971 The Onion Eaters and the Rhetoric of Donleavy's Comedy by Thomas LeClair Twentieth-Century Literature: A Scholarly and Critical Journal, Hempstead, NY #18 1972 The Skull Beneath the Skin: J.P. Donleavy's The Ginger Man by Donald E. Morse Michigan Academician, 6, Winter 1974 J.P. Donleavy: The Style of His Sadness and Humor by Charles G. Masinton Bowling Green University Popular Press, Bowling Green, OH 1975 The Satire of J.P. Donleavy's Ginger Man by Patrick W. Shaw in Studies in Contemporary Satire 1, 1975 Two Irish-American Novelists: J.P. Donleavy and Jimmy Breslin by Grace Eckley Illinois School Journal, 55, 1975 Tears and Laughter: The Tragic Comic Novels of J.P. Donleavy by John Johnson Michigan Academician, 9, Summer 1976 Etiquette for Ginger Man: A Critical Assessment of Donleavy's Unexpurgated Code by Charles G. Masinton. Midwest Quarterly, 18, January 1977 Irishmen and Irish-Americans in the Fiction of J.P. Donleavy by Johann Norstedt from Irish-American Fiction: Essays in Criticism eds. Daniel J. Casey & Robert E. Rhodes AMS Press, NY 1979 Isolation and Protest: a Case Study of J.P. Donleavy's Fiction by R.K. Sharma Ajanta Publications, Delhi, India 1983 The Satire of J.P. Donleavy's Ginger Man by Patrick W. Shaw Studies in Contemporary Satire v.12, 1985 American Readings of J.P. Donleavy's The Ginger Man by Donald E. Morse Eire-Ireland: a Journal of Irish Studies, v26, no. 3, 1991 Parables of Estrangement: the Fiction of J.P. Donleavy by C.R. Lyons from Exile and Subversion Eds. Paul Hyland & Neil Sammells, Bath College of Higher Education, November 1991 ISBN 033525418 (hardcover) 0333525426 (paperback) A Metafictional Reading of J.P. Donleavy's The Onion Eaters with Specific References to the Resultant Interrogation of the Construction of Sexuality Within Christian Ideology by Kirsten Braun. Unpublished paper in the library at Central Queensland University, Australia, 1994.


	Lectures and Presentations Given by Donleavy


					J.P. Donleavy: 'Oscar Wilde' Wednesday, October 22, 1997, 8:00 p.m. Days Produndis: The 4th Oscar Wilde Autumn School Chamber of Commerce House, Bray, Co Wicklow, Ireland. Donleavy was among the guest writers to visit Washington College's Sophie Kerr Series in their creative writing program. Date being researched. Donleavy has appeared twice at the Ilkley Literature Festival, Ilkley West Yorkshire, England, in 1995 and 1999. Details being researched.
					Donleavy apparently spoke at a college or university in Iowa City sometime in the early to mid 70s when John Irving and John Cheever were then faculty members. In an interview by Irving and following interchange of letters between Donleavy and Irving published in The Paris Review, reference is made to an alleged snubbing of Cheever (which Donleavy denies). Any other reading and/or lectures given by Donleavy will be listed here along with more details on this one as brought to light.

				Courses and Lectures On or Including Donleavy

					An Introduction to Modern Anglo Irish Poetry, Prose and Drama Weeks 15 - 17 : Donleavy's work assessed along with that of Flann O' Brien, Bernard Maclaverty and Edna O' Brien. Centre of Continuing Education, Department of Educational Studies, University of Surrey, Guildford, England, 1998. Engl 371 The Adolescent in Literature Includes literary expression on the subject by writers such as Wolfe, Salinger, Capote, Knowles, McCullers Donleavy, Mishima, Golding, Lessing, Moravia, Mauriac and Sagan. University of Massachusetts, Fall, 1999. AML 4121 Twentieth-Century American Novel A study of major trends and influences in American prose fiction from 1900 to the present. Includes works by such writers as Hemingway, London, Wharton, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, West, Mailer, Bellow, Ellison, Donleavy, Updike, Vonnegut and others. University of San Francisco, Fall, 2000.

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