Irish Poets and Modern Greece


Book Description

This book explores the perception of modern Greek landscape and poetry in the writings of Seamus Heaney and Derek Mahon. Delving into travel writing, ecocriticism, translation and allusion, it offers a fresh comparative link between Greek modernity and Irish poetry that counterbalances the preeminence of Greek antiquity in existing criticism. The first section, devoted to travel and landscape, examines Mahon’s modern perception of the Aegean, inspired by his travels to the Cyclades between 1974 and 1997, as well as Heaney’s philhellenic relationship with mainland Greece between 1995 and 2004. The second section offers a close analysis of their C. P. Cavafy translations, and compares George Seferis’ original texts with their creative rendition in the writings of the Irish poets. The book will appeal to readers of poetry as well as those interested in the interactions between Ireland and Greece, two countries at the extreme points of Europe, in times of crisis.




Irish Contemporary Landscapes in Literature and the Arts


Book Description

Looking at representations of the Irish landscape in contemporary literature and the arts, this volume discusses the economic, political and environmental issues associated with it, questioning the myths behind Ireland's landscape, from the first Greek descriptions to present day post Celtic-Tiger architecture.




Encounters in Greek and Irish Literature


Book Description

Encounters in Greek and Irish Literature brings together literary experts in two traditions and some contemporary novelists writing in them: this distinctive group includes Katy Hayes, Mia Gallagher, Deirdre Madden, Paraic O’Donnell, Christos Chrissopoulos, Panos Karnezis, Sophia Nikolaidou, and Ersi Sotiropoulos. Their work is presented in context, not only through excerpts from published and unpublished fiction, but also through eight self-reflective essays that enhance our understanding of these authors’ themes and modes. All these critical texts originate from a unique gathering of scholars and creative talent held at the Ionian University, Corfu, in October 2017, predominantly exploring Greek and Irish prose writing and the relationships between them. This volume paints a more complete picture through added scenes from drama, poetry and translation, and through considerations of the history and associations of two literatures at the edges of Europe. Translation is integral to the dialogues fostered; the selected works by the Irish and Greek writers can be read in both Greek and English, a manifestation of, and a further point in, the reception of these authors beyond Greece and Ireland. The book opens with a comprehensive introductory essay by Joanna Kruczkowska, and further insights into the creative mind and aspects of publishing are provided through a roundtable with the authors recorded at the time of the festival. This material further contributes to a remarkably structured look at the business of writing and the workings of two literary systems.




Landscapes of Irish and Greek Poets


Book Description

This book juxtaposes two countries on the margins of Europe that display many affinities: Ireland and Greece. It investigates how contemporary poetry from both countries engages with external and internal landscapes, bringing together essays by poets and academics, poems in English and Greek and interviews with poets Paula Meehan and Theo Dorgan.




Poets in a Landscape


Book Description

Using the poet's native Italian landscapes, Gilbert Highet recreates these poets in situ to evoke the essence of their work. His translations summon a land enchanted by presences - from Horace's beloved Tivoli to Ovid in the Abruzzi. Highet lets each poet tell his own story - their pleasures and agonies, passions and hates and above all their devotion to the natural world around them.




On Poetry


Book Description

“This is a book for anyone,” Glyn Maxwell declares of On Poetry. A guide to the writing of poetry and a defense of the art, it will be especially prized by writers and readers who wish to understand why and how poetic technique matters. When Maxwell states, “With rhyme what matters is the distance between rhymes” or “the line-break is punctuation,” he compresses into simple, memorable phrases a great deal of practical wisdom. In seven chapters whose weird, gnomic titles announce the singularity of the book—“White,” “Black,” “Form,” “Pulse,” “Chime,” “Space,” and “Time”—the poet explores his belief that the greatest verse arises from a harmony of mind and body, and that poetic forms originate in human necessities: breath, heartbeat, footstep, posture. “The sound of form in poetry descended from song, molded by breath, is the sound of that creature yearning to leave a mark. The meter says tick-tock. The rhyme says remember. The whiteness says alone,” Maxwell writes. To illustrate his argument, he draws upon personal touchstones such as Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost. An experienced teacher, Maxwell also takes us inside the world of the creative writing class, where we learn from the experiences of four aspiring poets. “You master form you master time,” Maxwell says. In this guide to the most ancient and sublime of the realms of literature, Maxwell shares his mastery with us.




Seamus Heaney and the Classics


Book Description

The death in 2013 of Seamus Heaney is an appropriate point to honour the great Irish poet's major contribution to classical reception in modern poetry. This is the first volume to be wholly dedicated to this perspective on Heaney's work, focusing primarily on his fascination with Greek drama and myth and his interest in Latin poetry.




Irish Poems


Book Description

With its roots in the devotional verse of the early Christian church and the long lyric poems of the Irish bards, Irish poetry has a rich and robust tradition both of engagement and self-reflection. It has grappled long with politics and has provided the most eloquent response to Ireland's turbulent history, mediating and mitigating histories of loyalty and loss; it has soaked itself in the Irish landscape and Celtic myth; it has encompassed religion, so much a part of Ireland's cultural heritage. At the same time Irish poets have given their own original slant to everyday experience and affairs of the heart.Thematically organized and spanning many centuries, this selection also features a section of Gaelic poetry in translation, notably excerpts from the 18th-century epic masterpiece, Brian Merriman's The Midnight Court.




Landscapes of Dread in Classical Antiquity


Book Description

Over the last two decades, research in cultural geography and landscape studies has influenced many humanities fields, including Classics, and has increasingly drawn our attention to the importance of spaces and their contexts, both geographical and social: how spaces are described by language, what spaces are used for by individuals and communities, and how language, use, and the passage of time invest spaces with meaning. In addition to this ‘spatial’ turn in scholarship, recent years have also seen an ‘emotive’ turn – an increased interest in the study of emotion in literature. Many works on landscape in classical antiquity focus on themes such as the sacred and the pastoral and the emotions such spaces evoke, such as (respectively) feelings of awe or tranquillity in settings both urban and rural. Far less scholarship has been generated by the locus terribilis, the space associated with negative emotions because of the bad things that happen there. In short, the recent ‘emotive’ turn in humanities studies has so far largely neglected several of the more negative emotions, including anxiety, fear, terror, and dread. The papers in this volume focus on those neglected negative emotions, especially dread – and they do so while treating many types of space, including domestic, suburban, rural and virtual, and while covering many genres and authors, including the epic poems of Homer, Greek tragedy, Roman poetry and historiography, medical writing, paradoxography and the short story.




Art and Landscape


Book Description