Provides a history of literature in the Irish language from the fifth century to the twentieth. This book traces the development of manuscripts from the Latin records made by monastic scribes and the vernacular works of ecclesiastics and lay scholars. It describes the fall of the native order and offers appraisals of the work of Irish writers.
Ireland is a country where for over a thousand years one cultural force has overshadowed all others: the power of a great literary tradition. This book provides a history of literature in the Irish language from the fifth century to the twentieth. Beginning with the introduction of writing into Ireland, it traces the development of manuscripts from the early Latin records made by monastic scribes to the vernacular works of ecclesiastic and lay scholars. It shows how convention and innovation combined to produce poetry of a consistently high artistic standard within a traditional framework. The latter half of the book concentrates on the fall of the native order and a final chapter on the revival offers critical appraisals of the work of recent and contemporary Irish writers and takes up such issues as the decline of the Irish language and the future of Irish-language literature. With a wealth of references to primary and secondary sources, this book is the first comprehensive survey of Irish-Gaelic literature since the publication of Douglas Hyde's Literary History of Ireland in 1899. First written in Welsh by J. E. Caerwyn Williams and published as Traddodiad Llenyddol Iwerddon (1958). The Irish Literary Tradition has been extensively revised and updated for publication in English.
Charles Wright identifies the characteristic features of Irish Christian literature which influenced Anglo-Saxon vernacular authors. As a full-length study of Irish influence on Old English religious literature, the book will appeal to scholars in Old English literature, Anglo-Saxon studies, and Old and Middle Irish literature.
In an examination of the prose and poetry of Irish women writers from the late eighteenth century through the present, contributors to this collection argue that a hidden tradition of women's comedy has evolved side by side with the canonical comic tradition. They call for a revisionist reading of Ireland's comic intellectual heritage - a reading from the perspectives of two genders - and demand a new kind of double optic - an interpretive frame of reference capable of grappling with difference. This collection will be of particular interest to Joyceans because it examines the influence of Joyce, who has been dismissed by many feminist critics as a pornographer and a champion of patriarchal privilege. It will also be of interest to students of African and African-American literature for its linking of Ireland's comic tradition to that of Africa's - a tradition noted for its use of ethical dialogue and for giving voice to the other.
The Language of Irish Literature is the first book on the market to discuss Irish Literature in terms of the history of, and the linguistic contacts in, the island. It provides a description of the development of the varieties of English in Ireland, concentrating on the input from Irish Gaelic and Scots as well as English. It examines the history of English in Ireland; the nature of Irish and of Irish Englishes; oral traditions: songs and stories; and the three main literary genres: drama, poetry and prose.
Irish literature exists in two languages. A dual approach is necessary if the tradition, with its historical, political and semantic tensions, is to be understood-indeed, if some of its features are to be appreciated at all. Separate Gaelic and Anglo-Irish anthologies and commentaries have long been readily available, but commentaries dealing with the total Irish literary response are rare. In The Dual Tradition Thomas Kinsella presents a view of poetry in Ireland from early times to the present day, concentrating on the periods of most radical adjustment and change: the coming of Christianity; Norman and later settlement; the end of the bardic period; colonialism and dispossession; politics before Famine and in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He brings Yeats and Joyce into new focus and considers in special detail the poetry of Austin Clarke, Patrick Kavanagh and Samuel Beckett. The translations from the Irish are by the author.
This comprehensive history of Irish literature is written in both its major languages, Irish and English. The twenty-eight chapters in the two-volume history provide an authoritative chronological survey of the Irish literary tradition. Spanning fifteen centuries of literary achievement, the two volumes range from the earliest medieval Latin texts to the late twentieth century. The contributors, drawn from a range of Irish, British and North American universities, are internationally renowned experts in their fields. Featuring a detailed chronology and guides to further reading for each chapter, this major project will become the key reference to Irish Literature.
Ireland is suffering from a crisis of authority. Catholic Church scandals, political corruption, and economic collapse have shaken the Irish people’s faith in their institutions and thrown the nation’s struggle for independence into question. While Declan Kiberd explores how political failures and economic globalization have eroded Irish sovereignty, he also sees a way out of this crisis. After Ireland surveys thirty works by modern writers that speak to worrisome trends in Irish life and yet also imagine a renewed, more plural and open nation. After Dublin burned in 1916, Samuel Beckett feared “the birth of a nation might also seal its doom.” In Waiting for Godot and a range of powerful works by other writers, Kiberd traces the development of an early warning system in Irish literature that portended social, cultural, and political decline. Edna O’Brien, Frank O’Connor, Seamus Heaney, and Michael Hartnett lamented the loss of the Irish language, Gaelic tradition, and rural life. Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill and Eavan Boland grappled with institutional corruption and the end of traditional Catholicism. These themes, though bleak, led to audacious experimentation, exemplified in the plays of Brian Friel and Tom Murphy and the novels of John Banville. Their achievements embody the defiance and resourcefulness of Ireland’s founding spirit—and a strange kind of hope. After Ireland places these writers and others at the center of Ireland’s ongoing fight for independence. In their diagnoses of Ireland’s troubles, Irish artists preserve and extend a humane culture, planting the seeds of a sound moral economy.