Hardly a Blunder: Trollope's Creation of Phineas Finn and Representations of Irishness to English Readers

Abstract

Abstract Anthony Trollope wrote in his autobiography that it had been a blunder to present an Irish character as a dominant figure in two of the six books which comprised his Palliser or Parliamentary novels. Given that the books, Phineas Finn (1869) and Phineas Redux (1874), were among his most popular and financially remunerative works, why would he have said that?

This thesis will examine the often negative perceptions the English had of Ireland and the Irish and demonstrate how Trollope’s invention of Finn was not a blunder, but a challenge he threw down to himself knowing full well that such a character went against the grain of English sensibility. A common English belief at that time, for example, was that the Irish were racially different from and inferior to Anglo-Saxons. In creating and placing this character at the highest levels of British politics and society, Trollope was able to write books which engaged with race, class, and to some degree gender, and in so doing created enduring works of literature which transcended the quotidian matters of Victorian life. An analysis of the historical background, examples from the texts, and the evolving critical opinion over the decades will show Trollope, by such a daring strategy, to be a more artful writer than the Victorian glance acknowledged and with a currency which makes him readable and relevant in the modern