LITT07019 2019 Yeats and Contemporary Irish Poetry

This module will introduce students to representative Irish poetry from Yeats to the present day and the literary theory and criticism relevant to the study of contemporary Irish poetry. The module will include examinations of the Irish Literary revival, the relation of poetry to national partition and the civil crisis in Northern Ireland, Irish Language Poetry in translation, gender in Irish poetry, post-colonialism, emigration and exile, postmodernism, the Celtic Tiger, and post-boom politics in relation to poetic theme and form. The poets we will read include W.B.Yeats, Austin Clarke, Patrick Kavanaugh, Seamus Heaney, John Montague, Michael Hartnett, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, Eilean Ní Chuilleanáin, Eavan Boland, Paula Meehan, Thomas Kinsella, Paul Muldoon, Vona Groark, Medbh McGuckian, Paul Durcan, Rita Ann Higgins, Derek Mahon, and other representative poets writing now.

A major collection of 20th century Irish poetry representing 47 poets since Yeats.

Boland, Eavan Object Lessons: The Life of the Woman and the Poet in Our Time. Carcanet Press, 1996.

Bourke, Angela, et al., eds. The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing Volumes IV and V: Women’s Writing and Traditions. Cork University Press, 2002.

Brown, Terence. Ireland A Social and Cultural History 1922 to 2001. HarperCollins, 2011.

Brown, Terrence. The Literature of Ireland, Culture and Criticism. Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Brown, Terence and Nicholas Grene, eds. Tradition and Influence in Anglo-Irish Poetry. Macmillan, 1989.

Cairns, David and Toni O’Brien, eds. Gender in Irish Writing. The Open University Press, 1991.

Cairns, David and Shaun Richards. Writing Ireland: Colonialism, Nationalism and Culture. Manchester University Press, 1988.

Crotty, Patrick, ed. Modern Irish Poetry: An Anthology. Blackstaff, 1995.

Campbell, Matthew. The Cambridge Companion to Contemporary Irish Poetry. Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Deane, Seamus. The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing Vols 1-3. Field Day Publications, 1991.

Dorgan, Theo, ed. Irish Poetry Since Kavanagh. Four Courts Press, 1996.

Fallis, Richard. The Irish Renaissance: an Introduction to Anglo-Irish Literature. Gill &McMillan, 1978.

Fitzmaurice, Gabriel and Declan Kiberd, eds. An Crann Faoi Bhláth/The Flowering Tree: Contemporary Irish Poetry with Verse Translations. Wolfhound, 1991.

Garrat, Robert F. Modern Irish Poetry. Tradition and Continuity from Yeats to Heaney University of California Press, 1986.

Goodby, John. Irish Poetry since 1950: From Stillness into History. Manchester University Press, 2000.

Graham, Colin. Deconstructing Ireland: Identity, Theory, Culture. Edinburgh University Press, 2001.

Heaney, Seamus. The Government of The Tongue: The 1986 T.S. Eliot Memorial Lectures and Other Critical Writings. Faber and Faber, 1988.

Holdridge, Jefferson and Brian O’Conchubair. Post-Ireland? Essays On Contemporary Irish Poetry. Wake Forest University Press, 2017.

Hufstader, John. Tongue of Water, Teeth of Stone: Northern Irish Poetry. University of Connecticut, 1999.

Hunt-Mahony, Christine. Contemporary Irish Literature: Transforming Tradition. Macmillan, 1998.

Keating, Kenneth. Contemporary Irish Poetry and the Canon.: Critical Limitations and Textual Liberations. Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.

Kelleher, Margaret and Philip O’Leary, eds. The Cambridge History of Irish Literature Volumes I and II. Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Kiberd, Declan. Inventing Ireland. Vintage, 1996.

Kiberd, Declan. The Irish Writer and The World. Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Kinsella, Thomas. The Dual Tradition: An Essay on Poetry and Politics in Ireland. Carcanet, 1995.

Lloyd, David. Anomalous States: Irish Writing and The Postcolonial Moment. Duquesne University Press, 1993.

Ní Dhomhnaill, Nuala. Selected Essays. New Island, 2005.

Obert, Julia. Post-Colonial Overtures: The Politics of Sound in Contemporary Northern Irish Poetry. Syracuse University Press, 2015.

Smith, Stan. Irish Poetry and the Construction of Modern Identity. Irish Academic Press, 2005.

Sewell, Frank. Modern Irish Poetry: A New Alhambra. Oxford University Press, 2000.

Welch, Robert. Changing States: Transformations in Modern Irish Writing. Routledge, 1993.

Wills, Clair. Improprieties: Politics and Sexuality in Northern Irish Poetry. Oxford University Press, 1993.

Wilson, Rebecca and Gilean Sommerville-Arjat. Sleeping with Monsters: Conversations with Scottish and Irish Women Poets. Wolfhound, 1990.

The Irish Review

Journal of Irish Studies

Nordic Irish Studies

Irish University Review

Poetry Ireland Review

Éire-Ireland

The Southern Review

Austin Clarke:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4QLH35Rq-E

Michael Hartnett:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hGXDpWGRec

Seamus Heaney:

https://www.rte.ie/culture/2018/0827/987853-seamus-heaney-remembered-classics-from-the-rte-archives/

Eavan Boland:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arYWAowatLs

Words Lightly Spoken, Poetry Ireland Podcast

RTE1 The Poetry Program

National Library of Ireland Online Exhibition Space

The Poetry Foundation App