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Revolutionary Revelry: Transformation, Circuitous Paths, Innovations, and Circularity
© Dr. Jeanne I. Lakatos, Ph.D.
"Let all your things be done in Love." (1 Corinthians 16:14)
Introduction:

- Dr. Jeanne Iris
- Current: Danbury, CT, United States
- Welcome! A few years ago, I discovered an application that artists employ in their works to bring cultural awareness to their audiences. Having discerned this semiotic theory that applies to literature, music, art, film, and the media, I have devoted the blog,Theory of Iconic Realism to explore this theory. The link to the publisher of my book is below. If you or your university would like a copy of this book for your library or if you would like to review it for a scholarly journal, please contact the Edwin Mellen Press at the link listed below. Looking forward to hearing from you!
Announcements
08 July, 2025
Sydney Owenson (Lady Morgan) and Disparate Characterizations in The Missionary
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07 July, 2025
"Clair de Lune" by Claude Debussy, A Deleted Segment of Walt Disney's 1940 film, "Fantasia"
06 July, 2025
Attack of the Georgia June Bugs
05 July, 2025
Sydney Owenson: Weaving Threads of Culture Together
From my book:
In Sydney Owenson’s national tales, she weaves together threads of disenfranchisement and enchantment, capturing the essence of the politically inspired Romantic era, in which the grand is intentionally written to be grander, where literary characterizations entwine with political forces within a civil society.
04 July, 2025
Declaration of Independence
Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776
03 July, 2025
A Yankee Doodle Dandy
02 July, 2025
Sydney Owenson's 'The Wild Irish Girl' and Revolutionary Thought
Sydney Owenson’s national tales and narrative poetry echo those of the American colonists in regard to humanity’s birth right of freedom, particularly in the way her British characters interact with Irish characters. Owenson sees the Irish used as scapegoats for England’s perceived imperial failure and, through her writing, takes a stand against the British. While she leads her fellow country men and women to awareness of individual and national pride, she also sheds light upon the conditions of the nineteenth century female, that of subjugation to male dominance.
Particularly in The Wild Irish Girl, Owenson reveals eighteenth century societal dictates present within the Irish culture. Her inclusion of Irish speech involves the ‘wild’ Irish instructing the British aristocracy on truths evident to the Irish but virtually unknown by the intruding British. For example, the main female character’s name is Glorvina, the word glor in Irish, meaning voice. In one of her initial conversations with the British character, Horatio, she explains the significance of Irish music:
This susceptibility to the influence of my country’s music, discovered itself in a period of existence, when no associating sentiment of the heart could have called it into being; for I have often wept in convulsive emotion at an air before the sad story it accompanied was understood: but now- now- that feeling is matured, and understanding awakened. Oh! You cannot judge-cannot feel- for you have no national music; and your country is the happiest under heaven! [1]
Audaciously, Owenson configures historical and linguistic elements of Ireland within this foundational national tale and juxtaposes these elements with those of Great Britain through her two main characters, illustrating a cultural fantasy of an Anglo-Irish coalition.
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[1] Sydney Owenson, The Wild Irish Girl, Boston: Joseph Greenleaf, 1808, p. 92.