Critical Essay | Critical Review by Patricia Craig

SOURCE: "Valorising Valentine Brown," in London Review of Books, Vol. 7, No. 15, September 5, 1985, pp. 10-11.

In the following review, Craig favorably compares Celtic Revivals to contemporaneous cultural critiques of literary constructions of "Anglo-Irishness."

In a recent Times article, Philip Howard pounced on the deplorable word 'valorisation' which seems to be trying to edge its way into the English language. 'To enhance the price, value or status of by organised … action' is one of the meanings he quotes for it. Here is an example of one such usage: 'the literary critics' valorisation of tradition'. This phrase occurs towards the end of W. J. McCormack's dissection of Anglo-Irishness as a literary and historical concept, Ascendancy and Tradition. 'Valorise', indeed, is a verb much favoured in this book, along with others like 'energise' and 'traumatise'. There's a word that might be applied to this style of writing: unstylish. At...
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