“remnants of some ancient shipwreck”: Jennifer Johnston, Shakespearean romance and twentieth-century Ireland

Jennifer Johnston’s novels are saturated with references to Shakespeare’s plays. This essay argues why Johnston’s novels are increasingly drawn not to Shakespeare’s tragedies (references to which are on several occasions comically undercut in her books) but rather to the comedies and, particularly, the late Romances. Shakespeare’s tragedies can easily be pressed into service to reinforce the “tragic” narratives of personal or national adversity, but rather than believing themselves doomed like Hamlet or Macbeth, Johnston’s protagonists commonly borrow elements from plays like Twelfth Night, As You Like It, Cymbeline and The Tempest to transcend the tragic impulse, allowing laughter and healing to flourish where others may choose to find only pity and terror. This is true not only for her heroes’ and heroines’ personal or domestic challenges; those same plays also provide positive, enabling models for overcoming the historical legacy of the Troubles which forms the backdrop of many Johnston novels.