Dr%20David%20Dwan: List of publications

Conrad’s fiction often focuses on luck, particularly on moral luck—those happenings that exceed our control but affect our standing in the world nonetheless. Such luck has a key bearing on the moral intelligibility of plot and character in Lord Jim. This is a novel that supports two sides of a paradox: morality should and should not be influenced by the vagaries of luck. There is no obvious resolution to this double vision in Conrad and it leads him to question the coherence of morality as a general system. He also doubts—however paradoxically—its basic fairness. If luck is all-pervasive, then justice itself is unjust.

This essay shows how the practice of symbolism needs to be interpreted within a broader intellectual history. The metaphysical content of this history might encourage us to abandon it, but it provides the conditions of intelligibility, nonetheless, for key literary concepts–at least if one assumes that the historical operation of these concepts have some bearing on their current use. I make the case with Yeats. His symbolic practice, I argue, is unintelligible without reference to two metaphysical traditions in which he was deeply invested 1) an idealism that is pledged to a super-reality that exceeds time and space 2) a radical subjectivism in which the private ego is the source and ground of meaning in the world. The friction between these two outlooks partly explains why the symbol becomes such a "troubled mirror" in Yeats's writing.

This comprehensive and accessible Companion examines the life and writings of Edmund Burke, one of the eighteenth century's most influential thinkers.

Culture and Nationalism in Ireland David Dwan. David Dwan The Great Community Culture and Nationalism in Ireland The Great Community The Great Community Culture and Nationalism in. Front Cover.