In an examination of the prose and poetry of Irish women writers from the late eighteenth century through the present, contributors to this collection argue that a hidden tradition of women's comedy has evolved side by side with the canonical comic tradition. They call for a revisionist reading of Ireland's comic intellectual heritage--a reading from the perspectives of two genders--and demand a new kind of double optic--an interpretive frame of reference capable of grappling with difference. This collection will be of particular interest to Joyceans because it examines the influence of Joyce, who has been dismissed by many feminist critics as a pornographer and a champion of patriarchal privilege. It will also be of interest to students of African and African-American literature for its linking of Ireland's comic tradition to that of Africa's--a tradition noted for its use of ethical dialogue and for giving voice to the Other.

What foremothers? /Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill -- The voices of Maria Edgeworth's comedy / Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin -- Hyacinth and the wise man : Lady Gregory's comic enterprise / Mary Lowe-Evans -- "Humor with a Gender" : Somerville and Ross and The Irish R.M. / James M. Cahalan -- The crumbling fortress : Molly Keane's comedies of Anglo-Irish manners / Rachael Jane Lynch -- Iris Murdoch's moral comedy / Flora Alexander -- (S)he was too scrupulous always : Edna O'Brien and the comic tradition / Michael Patrick Gillespie -- History, gender, and the post-colonial condition : Julia O'Faolain's comic rewriting of Finnegans Wake / Theresa O'Connor -- Lashings of the mother tongue : Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill's anarchic laughter / Mary O'Connor -- Joyce and Boylan's Black Baby : "swiftly and silently" / Jean-Louis Giovannangeli.