Out of What Began

by Schirmer, Gregory A.

• ISBN13: 9780801434983
• ISBN10: 080143498X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1998-11-01
• Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr

Summary

The first book of its kind, Out of What Began traces the development of a distinctive tradition of Irish poetry over the course of three centuries. Beginning with Jonathan Swift in the early eighteenth century and concluding with such contemporary poets as Seamus Heaney and Eavan Boland, Gregory A. Schirmer looks at the work of nearly a hundred poets. Considering the evolving political and social environments in which they lived and wrote, Schirmer shows how Irish poetry and culture have come to be shaped by the struggle to define Irish identity. Schirmer includes a large number of accomplished poets who have been unjustly neglected in standard accounts of Irish literature; many of these writers are women, whose work has been kept in the shadows cast by that of well-known male poets. He also emphasizes the importance of political poetry in a country that continues to be torn by sectarian violence. With its rich selection of poetic voices, Out of What Began reveals the political, social, and religious diversity of Irish culture.

Table of Contents

Preface	xi	(2)
Acknowledgments	xiii
PART I THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY	3	(66)
Introduction	3	(4)
Chapter 1 Swift and His World	7	(26)
Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Smedley
John Winstanley
Thomas Parnell
Matthew Concanen
Matthew Pilkington
Mary Barber
Constantia Grierson
Laetitia Pilkington
Dorothea Du Bois.
Chapter 2 Divergent Directions: Beyond and Within the Pale	33	(9)
Laurence Whyte
William Dunkin
Anonymous Poems
Chapter 3 Goldsmith and the Beginnings of Romanticism	42	(13)
Oliver Goldsmith
Samuel White
Thomas Dermody
Chapter 4 Political Poetry at the End of the Century	55	(8)
Mary O'Brien
Edward Lysaght
James Orr.
William Drennan
Epilogue The Other Ireland Charlotte Brooke	63	(6)
PART II THE NINETEENTH CENTURY	69	(100)
Introduction	69	(4)
Chapter 5 Ireland in Transition: Thomas Moore	73	(8)
Chapter 6 Ireland Translated	81	(35)
Mary Balfour
Thomas Furlong
J.J. Callanan
James Clarence Mangan
Edward Walsh.
Samuel Ferguson.
Chapter 7 Ireland Anglicized	116	(18)
George Darley.
Aubrey de Vere
Thomas Caulfield Irwin
William Allingham
John Francis O'Donnell
Chapter 8 Ireland Politicized	134	(35)
Thomas Davis
Denis Florence MacCarthy
Thomas D'Arcy McGee
John Keegan Casey
Lady Dufferin
Cecil Francis Alexander
Lady Wilde
Mary Kelly
Ellen Mary Patrick Downing
Ellen O'Leary
PART III THE LITERARY REVIVAL	169	(98)
Introduction	163	(6)
Chapter 9 Translation: Gael, Gall, and Peasant	169	(8)
Geroge Sigerson
Douglas Hyde
Chapter 10 Celticism and Romanticism	177	(17)
John Todhunter
William Larminie
T.W. Rolleston
Lionel Johnson
George Russell
Chapter 11 Celticism and Feminism	194	(26)
Rose Kavanagh
Katherine Tynan
Nora Hopper
Emily Lawless
Dora Sigerson
Ethna Carbery
Alice Milligan
Moira O'Neill
Ella Young
Susan Mitchell
Eva Gore-Booth
Chapter 12 Early Yeats	220	(11)
Chapter 13 Other Visions and Revisions	231	(36)
John M. Synge
Thomas MacDonagh
Patrick Pearse
Joseph Mary Plunkett
Seamus O'Sullivan
Joseph Campbell
Padraic Colum
James Stephens
Francis Ledwidge
PART IV POETRY IN MODERN IRELAND	267	(85)
Introduction	267	(6)
Chapter 14 Yeats	273	(10)
Chapter 15 Exits from the Revival	283	(18)
Oliver St. John Gogarty
Thomas MacGreevy
Austin Clarke
F.R. Higgins
Robert Farren
Chapter 16 New Perspectives at Midcentury	301	(18)
Austin Clarke
Patrick Kavanagh
Padraic Fallon
Denis Devlin
Chapter 17 Covert Voices: Women Poets after the Revival	319	(10)
Mary Devenport O'Neill
Blanaid Salkeld
Rhoda Coghill
Sheila Wingfield
Maire MacEntee
Eithne Strong
Chapter 18 The North	329	(11)
Louis MacNeice
John Hewitt
W.R. Rodgers
Chapter 19 Toward Contemporary Poetry	340	(12)
Richard Murphy
Thomas Kinsella
John Montague
Epilogue: Some Observations on Contemporary Poetry in Ireland	352	(13)
Notes	365	(40)
Bibliography	405	(12)
Index	417