BIOGRAPHY AS PROMOTIONAL DISCOURSE: THE CASE OF MAUD GONNE

This article explores the cultural impact of critical and popular biographies about Maud Gonne. By focusing on Gonne as primarily an object of Yeats's desire, this biographical discourse, I argue, serves political and economic, rather than ‘purely’ literary, purposes: these biographies romanticize Gonne's considerable political contributions and capitalize on a flourishing Yeats industry that reinforces the representation of Gonne as an interesting but minor figure in twentieth-century Irish culture.