The Critics’ Count: Revisions ofDraculaand the Postcolonial Irish Gothic

Abstract

This article revisits Irish criticism of the foundational period of postcolonial studies in view of its relevance to the topic of revisionism in contemporary postcolonial theory. Situating the status of Ireland and its literature in postcolonial studies, it suggests that the early distinction between academic “rereading” and creative “writing back” is a false one and that developments in Irish studies in the 1980s anticipate the more nuanced brands of contemporary postcolonialism. As a case in point, the article considers critical revisions of Irish Gothic fiction, which provided a context for various revisions conducted in the 1990s and early 2000s of the novelDracula(1897) by Bram Stoker (1847–1912). It focuses on the “metrocolonial” concept introduced by Joseph Valente, which offers a means not only of connecting these revisions but of specifying the postcolonial status of Ireland and of relating revisionism to the revolutionary and reconciliatory strands of contemporary postcolonial theory.