The Irish tale by Sidney Owenson

The article for the first time considers the "Irish fairy tale" by S. Owenson as the kind of a literary fairy tale that has its own ideological-thematic specifics. The authors show that the novelist had a peculiar perception of the historical chronotope. She constantly talked about the present with an "eye" on the past, designated certain thesaurus keys in the form of an ancient legend, the Irish people, the names and surnames of the representatives of famous Irish clans. In the fairy-tale novels by Owenson a specific "Irish world" was formed as the world based on a national tradition based on Irish history, on historical reality in legends and fairy tales. In all the novels, the author introduces the reader to the world of legend, linking the heroic past of Ireland with the humiliated present of its indigenous population and not forgetting about the elements of the fantastic author's speculation "relying" for fairy tales. The thesaurus "freedom" becomes central to the aesthetics of the novelist, who seeks to understand her contemporaries through a historical cross-section, to show the world of the Irish people as a world full of goodness, peace, and loyalty to national traditions. The novel "The Wild Irish Girl: a National tale" (1806) is about it. The authors of the article for the first time acquaint the domestic reader with the fairy-tale novels "O'Donnell: a National Tale" (1814), "The O'Briens and the O'Flaherty: A National Tale” (1827) showing the real life of the Irish peasantry. The article contains the analysis of the novel "Florence Macarthy: an Irish Tale" (1818), which reflected the contradictions in the author's views and her doubts in the strength of the Irish spirit. The material of the Irish fairy-tale novels by S. Owenson is relevant, because it still raises socio-political questions concerning the independence of the Irish people and opens up for the researchers an undeservedly forgotten name of the famous Anglo-Irish authoress of the first half of the XIX century.