The revitalization of national consciousness through ethno-symbolic nationalism : the study of The Blind Owl, Between The Acts, Once Upon A Time and Dubliners

The rise of nationalism in the early twentieth century, in the build-up to the world wars, was contemporaneous with unprecedented upheavals in literature, particularly the advent of modernism. Then, ethno-symbolic nationalism was theorized by Anthony D. Smith. This approach relies on the myths, memories, symbols and values of a nation to try to surpass the divergence and “polarization between primordialism and modernism” (Özkirimli, 2000, p.168). It also enables readers to perceive the importance of memories, myths and symbols and makes them realize the common roots and backgrounds that lead to the affinity and cohesion of nation-members. Studies such as The Ethnic Origins of Nations (1986), Nation and Ethnoscape (1997), The Nation in History (2000) and The Antiquity Of Nations (2000), all emphasized the historical/cultural images, myths, symbols and memories of each nation as opposed to the modernist nationalists or primordialsits - who accentuate the concept of the nation-state or geography.
This recent ethno-symbolic approach created new possibilities on the analysis of literary studies. Having been adopted by many theorists to refine the concept of nationalism and analyse the process of the formation of nationhood, the ethno-symbolic approach has been chiefly involved with political theory. It is very rarely discussed or applied in the field of art and literature.
Building on the literature from the birth of modernism (Joyce and Jamalzadeh) and later modernism (Woolf and Hedayat), my thesis aims to take the ethno-symbolic nationalism and apply it to literary texts from the early twentieth century to explore the creation and critique of national identities through literature. It also aims to critique literary scholars’ traditional understanding of nationalism. Texts like The Blind Owl, Between the Acts, Dubliners and Once Upon A Time are made up of images, symbols, myths and figurative events that subject traditional nationalisms to ethno-symbolic critique