Biography: It comes as rather a surprise to learn from Linda Kelly's bibliography that hers appears to be the eighth life of Thomas Moore. Of Irish writers, only Wilde has received anything like the same degree of biographical attention, and Wilde's life and work are obviously of greater interest and significance than Moore's.
Not to deny that Moore is of interest, with his European-wide popularity, his mingling with the mighty of Regency England and even the range of his prose and verse (it's a mistake to think of him only with regard to the Melodies). And he is arguably the first Irish literary figure to attain superstar status in London, an accomplishment which initiates a cultural dimension of Anglo-Irish relations more complicated and illuminating than the rigidities typical of those relations' political forms. But, since biography is not just a matter of a particular subject's works and days but also of those traces of meaning and experience which outlast their time, quite how what's interesting about Moore may be construed so as to engage today's readers remains a question.
Linda Kelly's answer is indicated in her title and subtitle. Here, however, certain imbalances suggest themselves. The title itself, for example, aligns the central fact of a geographical entity, with all the additional social and historical factors thus entailed, with the peripheral and essentially cosmetic activity of minstrelsy. This alignment is one which Moore's career developed and exploited, of course, no doubt with the best possible intentions. But perhaps the implications of his having done so might have been probed. At one level, Moore's performances may have been the expression of a generous, if naive, spirit. At another, they might have been the product of a gap in the market, constituting more a moment in the history of taste rather than anything credibly national. Or perhaps, the Moore phenomenon may most revealingly be seen as a distinctive episode in the annals of stage Irishness, a more clever and original act of passing than that undertaken later by American minstrelsy (in which many an Irish player participated).
But Linda Kelly's approach is lacking in cultural range and intellectual curiosity, and her tendency to take Moore at his charming and sentimental word, together with an emphasis on personality and success, inhibits an approach which could have been more fully contextualised and more constructively critical.
What Moore earned from his publishers gets the same attention, pretty much, as what the reader might gain from reading what he published - except in the cases of the long poems Lalla Rookh and Love of the Angels, whose financial success is reported to be inversely proportionate to their readability. On the other hand, Moore's satirical verse is nothing if not readable, though the fidelity of much of it to the Whig party line makes much of it seem stale now. Still, discussing an opus such as The Fudge Family in Paris might have been a way of thinking about Moore's own efforts to be more than the minstrel Linda Kelly makes of him - "Moore, in the end, was a writer of songs and lyrics". Efforts to establish more than biographical connections between Moore and Romantic poetry are not convincing, largely because Moore espouses sentiment rather than passion and is facile rather than original.
Since so many of his songs and lyrics have Irish themes, it may not seem too much of a stretch to claim that Moore was a patriot. No doubt the cause of Ireland was dear to his heart, having come of age as he did in the 1790s and being a friend of Emmet's. His militancy soon subsided, however, when he entered the Middle Temple to read law, and in later years he was lukewarm towards O'Connell. It's also a little strange to read: "Protected in his childhood, Moore had never been exposed to the full extent of Irish miseries . . . and he was shocked by the poverty he encountered on his travels". This was in 1823; Moore was 44. The point is not to incriminate Moore for his lack of awareness but to bring into clearer perspective the Ireland-in-the-head he was projecting which, however well-meaning, seems to be deficient in the political self-consciousness indispensable to patriotism.
A friend of Byron's Moore certainly was - he comes across here, indeed, as the un-Byron: uxorious, complaisant, sin-free - but whether this role has the same significance as that of poet and patriot remains a matter of debate. To have earned Byron's trust by being given his lordship's journal, never mind receiving an honorific mention in Don Juan, is by no means negligible, even if it was Byron's remark that "Tommy loves a lord" which later nationalist attacks on Moore echoed. But Moore badly bungled possession of the journal, the dispute regarding which was resolved by it being burned, with Moore among the witnesses, though he made amends of a kind in his Byron biography. But such events are not in the same category as fabricating a disposition for one's native country, so that the attention drawn to Byron is another area of Ireland's Minstrel where a degree of covert incongruence may be detected.
Linda Kelly writes crisply and has organised her work along conventionally chronological lines, though these are not always adhered to. Hers is the first Moore biography to benefit from the indispensable edition of Moore's Journal prepared by Wilfred S Dowden 20-odd years ago, which is used liberally though judiciously. It may well be that Moore is no more and no less than the genial, personable, fluent, feckless man-about-town portrayed in Ireland's Minstrel. He happens to be more interesting, however, if regarded in the same way as most writers of consequence - as a bit of a problem.
George O'Brien is professor of English at Georgetown University, Washington DC
Ireland's Minstrel: A Life of Tom Moore - Poet, Patriot and Byron's Friend By Linda Kelly IB Tauris, 262pp. £20