Edmund Burke and Ireland: Aesthetics, Politics, and the Colonial Sublime

Abstract

Introduction: Edmund Burke and the colonial sublime Part I. The Politics of Pain: 1. 'This King of Terrors' Edmund Burke and the aesthetics of executions 2. Philoctetes and colonial Ireland: the wounded body as national narrative Part II. Sympathy and the Sublime 3. The sympathetic sublime: Edmund Burke, Adam Smith and the politics of pain 4. Did Edmund Burke cause the great Famine? Political economy and colonialism Part III. Colonialism and Enlightenment: 5. 'Tranquillity tinged with terror': the sublime and agrarian insurgency 6. Burke and colonialism: the enlightenment and cultural diversity Part IV. Progress and Primitivism: 7. 'Subtilised into savages': Burke, progress and primitivism 8. 'The return of the native': The United Irishmen, culture and colonialism.