Presented to the Calgary Women’s Literary Club by Mooréa G. on October 15, 2024

Discovering Bowen and the Big House Novel

Elizabeth Bowen’s contributions to Irish literature have become relatively unfamiliar to twenty-first century audiences. Bowen, however, was a prolific writer having written ten novels, more than one hundred short stories, non-fiction, one children’s book, and countless reviews and articles. Bowen was made a Companion of the British Empire, nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature, and short listed for the Booker Prize.

Elizabeth Bowen was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1899 and died in London, England in 1973. Her family were well-to-do, Anglo-Irish Protestants, who spent much of their time at Bowen’s Court in County Cork: the ancestral home of her father.

At twenty-four, Bowen married Alan Cameron, with whom she moved to Oxford and then London. With an interest in writing, Bowen began to circulate in the same social and literary circles as Virginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot, Graham Greene, and Rose Macaulay.

Much of Bowen’s writing is strongly autobiographical. It is for this reason, discovering the writer, as well as her writing, is of importance. Bowen’s reoccurring themes, characters, and settings are written with intention and reflection.

Upon the death of her father in 1930, Bowen inherited Bowen ‘s Court. Due to the financial strain of maintaining such a demanding country house and estate, Bowen was forced to sell Bowen’s Court in 1960, with it promptly being demolished.

Big House Literature, which may be in the form of a novel, short story, or poem, was written in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and focuses on the decline of the Big House and the society it represents. Elizabeth Bowen’s The Last September is, perhaps, the most recognized and studied Big House Novel. The Anglo-Irish Big House is an important part of Irish culture and history, as well as Bowen’s personal life and writing.

As early as the 16th century, Big Houses were built and inhabited by Anglo-Irish Protestants known as Protestant Ascendancy, or simply Ascendancy. The Big House was a symbol of colonial rule and showcased the owner’s wealth and power. Owners were politicians, landowners, clergymen, military officers, as well as other prominent professionals. Well into the 18th century, the Catholic, Gaelic Irish were displaced by the English, Welsh, and Scottish usurpers. The Irish either moved or became tenants and workers of the Protestant Ascendancy.

The complexity, entitlement, and decline of the Irish Big House and Ascendency set the foundation of Bowen’s The Last September and her non-fiction book, Bowen’s Court.

The Last September (1929) takes place in County Cork in 1920 during the War of Independence. Danielstown, the fictional, Anglo-Irish Big House belonging to Sir Richard and Lady Myra Naylor, stands at the centre of the novel.

The novel deals with subjects including the War of Independence, the decline of the Protestant Ascendancy, the Anglo-Irish Big House, young love, feminist issues such as independence and self-expression, and the relationships between the Irish, Anglo-Irish, and British.

The Last September is often described by critics—and the writer herself—as Bowen’s finest novel. However, some critics describe this novel as “difficult and resistant to interpretation,” and Bowen’s writing as having “wilful disregard for the reader.”

The Death of the Heart (1938) is a much easier read than The Last September. While the themes and the novel’s title suggest a serious and somber story, Bowen lightens the subject matter with amusing lines of humour.

The novel takes place in Central London and on the Kentish seaside during the inter-war years. Themes include the coming-of-age, secrecy and deception, family, women’s lack of autonomy, and death.

In addition to The Last September and The Death of the Heart, Bowen’s other novels, Bowen’s Court, and her more than one hundred short stories deserve attention. Elizabeth Bowen: Collected Stories (2019) is an apt place to begin. This anthology contains an introduction by John Banville, a thorough chronology, and seventy-nine short stories, including “The Parrot,” “The Cat Jumps,” and “The Demon Lover.”

Written by Mooréa G.