East-Central Europe in the work of James Clarence Mangan

This chapter explores the representation of East-Central Europe in a range of Mangan’s poetry and prose from 1838-1847, focusing particularly on Austria and its capital Vienna, historically regarded as the meeting-point of Western and Eastern Europe. Drawing on readings of Mangan’s story “The Man in the Cloak” (1838) and a range of his translations from the work of Bohemian-born Viennese poet, Joseph Christian Freiherr von Zedlitz (1790-1862), I argue that Mangan is engaging directly with continental politics rather than simply commenting refractively on politics closer to home. Mangan’s interest in this area is twofold, stemming, on the one hand, from the amenability of East-Central Europe to the themes and tropes of the gothic, a genre central to Mangan’s imagination, and, on the other, from an underlying affinity in the historical position of the Irish and East-European poet in negotiating complex and contested politics of identity.