Writing Lough Derg: From William Carleton to Seamus Heaney (Irish Studies) - Softcover

O'Brien, Peggy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0815630980 ISBN 13: 9780815630982

Publisher: Syracuse University Press, 2006

Synopsis

The overarching purpose of this volume is to show how a discrete tradition of writing about Lough Derg helped contemporary Irish poets rescue, metaphysical inquiry from the grip of nationalism. Linked with the supernatural from pagan times, Lough Derg had by the early twentieth century become an icon of the fusion of the Catholic Church and the Irish nation. Surveying literary treatments of Lough Derg from William Carleton through Denis Devlin, Patrick Kavanagh, and ultimately Seamus Heaney, Peggy O'Brien addresses the role of spirituality in an increasingly cosmopolitan, postmodern, post-Catholic Ireland. O'Brien's extended consideration of Heaney culminates in an insightful juxtaposition with Czeslaw Milosz, the Polish poet who also struggled with the conflation of Catholicism and patriotism.

About this title

About the Author:

Peggy O'Brien is professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is the editor of the Book of Irish Women's Poetry, 1969-2000, and regularly publishes essays on contemporary Irish poetry.

Review:

"O'Brien's prose is brilliant. She possesses a marvelous facility for imaging explanations.... Her style is characteristically rich and economical, beautifully carrying her lucid and subtle arguments." - Audrey Eyler, Pacific Lutheran University"

About this edition

• Publisher: Syracuse University Press
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0815630980
• ISBN 13: 9780815630982
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 342