Killeen, Jarlath 1976-

PERSONAL:

Born February 7, 1976, in Ireland; son of Peter and Bernadette Killeen. Ethnicity: "White." Education: Trinity College, Dublin, B.A., 1998; National University of Ireland, Ph.D., 2001. Religion: Roman Catholic.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Kildare, Ireland. Office—Department of English, Trinity College, University of Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland; fax: 353-1-671-7114. E-mail—killeej@tcd.ie.

CAREER:

Educator and writer. Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland, lecturer in English.

WRITINGS:

The Faiths of Oscar Wilde: Catholicism, Folklore, and Ireland, Palgrave Macmillan (New York, NY), 2005.

Gothic Ireland: Horror and the Irish Anglican Imagination in the Long Eighteenth Century, Four Courts (Portland, OR), 2005.

The Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde, Ashgate (Burlington, VT), 2007.

Contributor to Religion and the Arts.

SIDELIGHTS:

Jarlath Killeen is an Irish academic and writer. He completed his higher education in Irish schools and went on to lecture at his alma mater, Trinity College, Dublin. Killeen's scholarly research interests include Victorian period literature and culture, Gothic and children's literatures, and the relationship between religion and literature.

In 2005 Killeen published The Faiths of Oscar Wilde: Catholicism, Folklore, and Ireland. In the book Killeen notes that previous studies of Oscar Wilde and his Catholicism were separated from studies of Wilde and his Irish heritage. Here he combines the two elements, in the attempt to create a more holistic view of Wilde. In an Irish University Review: A Journal of Irish Studies article, Graham Price stated: "With The Faiths of Oscar Wilde, Jarlath Killeen has emphatically staked his claim to be regarded alongside critics such as Richard Pine, Declan Kiberd, and Jerusha McCormack as one of the major commentators on ‘The Irish Oscar Wilde.’" John G. Peters, writing in English Literature in Transition 1880-1920, remarked that "Killeen is best in his ability to represent the relationships between England and Ireland and Protestantism and Catholicism, particularly in the cultural and historical context of the time. He presents good arguments regarding the important elements that provide the backdrop for Wilde's life and works." Peters noted, however, that "the problem arises when Killeen seeks to apply his arguments regarding this context to Wilde's works; therein he makes various connections that result in significant jumps in reasoning."

Killeen also published Gothic Ireland: Horror and the Irish Anglican Imagination in the Long Eighteenth Century in 2005. In this book Killeen pays close attention to the Anglican perspective in viewing eighteenth-century Ireland. Shannon Wells-Lassagne, writing in the Irish Literary Supplement, praised the book, saying that "Killeen's arguments are original and provocative, whether or not one is convinced by them, and his work is a worthy one in many ways. It is a useful text because of its use of lesser-known texts to explain the period, or its use of better-known texts in an unusual light." Wells-Lassagne further noted that "the breadth of its ambition, the daring of its analyses, is both fascinating and frustrating: indeed, it is perhaps this very ambition that is the book's greatest flaw. Killeen's analyses are interesting, but oftentimes he whets the appetite only to skirt a more complete study that would make his logic more convincing." Overall, however, Wells-Lassagne concluded that "Gothic Ireland is a scholarly work that will inevitably spark debate as to the origins of the Gothic, and allow eighteenth-century scholars to re-examine some central texts in relation to their historical context, and as such is already a valuable contribution to the field." Writing in the Irish University Review: A Journal of Irish Studies, Michael O'Rourke wrote that since the popular wave of Gothicism already peaked in Irish Studies, he had "a spooky feeling that Killeen's book is everywhere haunted by a Freudian Nachtraglichkeit, a belatedness, but one which, I hope, will open up a new and exciting future for the study of Irish Gothic." O'Rourke commented that "those wishing and waiting for such a long time for an exploration of the Gothic in eighteenth-century Ireland will not be disappointed." He warned, however, that "those hoping for a theory of Irish Gothic will have to look elsewhere or draw out theoretical conclusions for themselves."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, September, 2006, G.A. Cevasco, review of The Faiths of Oscar Wilde: Catholicism, Folklore, and Ireland, p. 111.

English Literature in Transition 1880-1920, spring, 2007, John G. Peters, review of The Faiths of Oscar Wilde.

Irish Literary Supplement, fall, 2006, D.C. Rose, review of The Faiths of Oscar Wilde; spring, 2007, Shannon Wells-Lassagne, review of Gothic Ireland: Horror and the Irish Anglican Imagination in the Long Eighteenth Century.

Irish University Review: A Journal of Irish Studies, March 22, 2006, Graham Price, review of The Faiths of Oscar Wilde, p. 244; March 22, 2007, Michael O'Rourke, review of Gothic Ireland, p. 252.

ONLINE

Trinity College, University of Dublin, Department of English Web site,http://www.tcd.ie/English/ (January 10, 2008), author profile.