To Ireland, I, Volume 1In To Ireland, I, the Clarendon Lectures in English 1998, Paul Muldoon produces a firework display of scholarship, wit, and intrigue, in an idiosyncratic wander through the alphabet of Irish literature. From a mischievous beginning in AmerginDSthe first poet of IrelandDSMuldoon forges link afterlink between the disparate and the unlikely, until modernists and medievalists appear as congenial neighbours on the half-lit, literary streets of Ireland. From Beckett and Bowen, through MacNeice, Swift, and YeatsDSand ever-guided by JoyceDSTo Ireland, I tip-toes delicately through the long grass ofIrish writing, pirouetting at borders, diverting streams, into a landscape of pure Muldoon: of brilliant connections and irreverent asides, of improbable alleyways and unconventional leapsDSbut always a landscape of luminous engagement and genuine revelation. Muldoons Ireland, shrouded in the fethfiada or magical mist of Gaelic literature, emerges as a strange estate, half-in, half-out of what he calls the fairy realm. A provocative A to Z, with a particular emphasis on the continuity of the tradition, To Ireland, I is an extremely enjoyable jaunt through Irish literature from one of the most important poets of his generation. |
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aisling Amergin appears aspect Beckett Book Bowen Celtic cognate Collected Poems Conall Carnach Cú Roí Cuchulainn Cumhaigh Curaig Maile Dúin deer Deirdre Denis Devlin Derga's Hostel described Dublin Edward Lhuyd English Eochaid Erin Etain feth fiada Finnegans Wake Gabriel Conroy Gael Gods and Fighting Graves Gresham Gretta horse Hyde Ibid idea Imram Curaig Maile Ireland Irish language Irish writers island James Joyce John Joyce's The Dead Kelleher king Krapp Krapp's Last Tape Lady Gregory Lilli burlero London look Lough lover Lugh Macha MacNeice's Malone means Michael Furey Miss Ivors Morkans Naoise night O'Connell Penguin phrase poet sense sídhe Sir Samuel Ferguson snow song Sovranty of Ireland story Swift Synge there's Thomas MacGreevy Toland Tommy Crans translation tree Tristan Tristram Tuatha Dé Danann Vallancey Voyage W. B. Yeats want to suggest wife window woman writes Yeats's