Irish Poetry

Irish poetry

The history of Irish poetry includes the poetries of two languages, one in Irish and the other in English. The complex interplay between these two traditions, and between both of them and other poetries in English, has produced a body of work that is both rich in variety and difficult to categorize.

The earliest surviving poems in Irish date back to the 6th century, while the first known poems in English from Ireland date to the 14th century. Although some cross-fertilization between the two language traditions has always happened, the final emergence of an English-language poetry that had absorbed themes and models from Irish did not appear until the 19th century. This culminated in the work of the poets of the Celtic Revival at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century.

Towards the last quarter of the century, modern Irish poetry has tended to a wide range of diversity, from the poets of the Northern school to writers influenced by the modernist tradition and those facing the new questions posed by an increasingly urban and cosmopolitan society.

La historia de la poesía irlandesa comprende obras en irlandés (una de las lenguas gaélicas) y en inglés. La compleja interacción que se produjo históricamente entre ambas lenguas, así como entre la poesía autóctona y otras poesías en inglés, dio como resultado una obra rica, variada y difícil de categorizar.

Los poemas más tempranos que sobreviven del irlandés datan del siglo VI y los primeros poemas conocidos en inglés de Irlanda datan del siglo XIV. Aunque siempre ha existido un cruce entre las dos tradiciones, la aparición de una poesía irlandesa en inglés que había absorbido temas y modelos de la irlandesa, no apareció hasta el siglo XIX. Todo ello culminó con el trabajo de los poetas del llamado Renacimiento céltico, a finales del siglo XIX y comienzos del XX.

En el último cuarto del siglo XX, la poesía irlandesa moderna reviste una gran diversidad temática y estilística, que abarca desde la escuela norteña a la influida por la tradición del Modernismo anglosajón, y de esta a aquella otra que da en afrontar las nuevas cuestiones suscitadas en una sociedad cada vez más urbana y cosmopolita.

The 19th century

During the course of the 19th century, political and economic factors resulted in the decline of the Irish language and the concurrent rise of English as the main language of Ireland. This fact is reflected in the poetry of the period.

Paradoxically, as soon as English became the dominant language of Irish poetry, the poets began to mine the Irish-language heritage as a source of themes and techniques. J. J. Callanan (1795–1829) was born in Cork and died at a young age in Lisbon. Unlike many other more visibly nationalist poets who would follow later, he knew Irish well, and several of his poems are loose versions of Irish originals. Although extremely close to Irish materials, he was also profoundly influenced by Byron and his peers; possibly his finest poem, the title work of The Recluse of Inchidony and Other Poems (1829), was written in Spenserian stanzas that were clearly inspired by Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Probably the most renowned Irish poet to write in English in a recognisably Irish fashion in the first half of the 19th century was Thomas Moore (1779–1852), although he had no knowledge of, and little respect for, the Irish language. He attended Trinity College Dublin at the same time as the revolutionary Robert Emmet, who was executed in 1803. Moore's most enduring work, Irish Melodies, was popular with English audiences. The poems are, perhaps, somewhat overloaded with harps, bards and minstrels of Erin to suit modern tastes, but they did open up the possibility of a distinctive Irish English-language poetic tradition and served as an exemplar for Irish poets to come. In 1842, Charles Gavan Duffy (1816–1903), Thomas Davis, (1814–1845), and John Blake Dillon (1816–1866) founded The Nation to agitate for reform of British rule. The group of politicians and writers associated with The Nation came to be known as the Young Irelanders. The magazine published verse, including work by Duffy and Davis, whose A Nation Once Again is still popular among Irish Nationalists. However, the most significant poet associated with The Nation was undoubtedly James Clarence Mangan (1803–1849). Mangan was a true poète maudit, who threw himself into the role of bard, and even included translations of bardic poems in his publications.

Another poet who supported the Young Irelanders, although not directly connected with them, was Samuel Ferguson (1810–1886). Ferguson once wrote: 'my ambition (is) to raise the native elements of Irish history to a dignified level.' To this end, he wrote many verse retellings of the Old Irish sagas. He also wrote a moving elegy to Thomas Davis. Ferguson, who believed that Ireland's political fate ultimately lay within the Union, brought a new scholarly exactitude to the study and translation of Irish texts. William Allingham (1824–1889) was another important Unionist figure in Irish poetry. Born and bred in Ballyshannon, Donegal, he spent most of his working life in England and was associated with the Pre-Raphaelite movement, and a close friend of Tennyson. His Day and Night Songs was illustrated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Millais. His most important work is the long poem, Laurence Bloomfield in Ireland (1864), a realist narrative which wittily and movingly deals with the land agitation in Ireland during the period. He was also known for his work as a collector of folk ballads in both Ireland and England.

Ferguson's research opened the way for many of the achievements of the Celtic Revival, especially those of Yeats and Douglas Hyde, but this narrative of Irish poetry which leads to the Revival as culmination can also be deceptive and occlude important poetry, such as the work of James Henry (1798–1876), medical doctor, Virgil scholar and poet. His large body of work was completely overlooked until Christopher Ricks included him in two anthologies, and eventually edited a selection of his poetry. Various in his means, cosmopolitan in his range and possessed of an acute wit, Henry shows the negative force of nationalism in Irish criticism: his omission from standard accounts and anthologies for over 100 years can only be due to his blithe disregard of the matter of Ireland. 'Irish poetry', James's example suggests, does not always have to be about Ireland.

Folk songs and poems

During the 19th century, poetry in Irish became essentially a folk art. One of the few well-known figures from this period was Antoine Ó Raifteiri (Anthony Raftery) (1784–1835), who is known as the last of the wandering bards. His Mise Raifteiri an file is still learned by heart in some Irish schools. In addition, this was one of the great periods for the composition of folk songs in both languages, and the majority of the traditional singer's repertoire is typically made up of 19th century songs.

The Celtic revival

Probably the most significant poetic movement of the second half of the 19th century was French Symbolism. This movement inevitably influenced Irish writers, not least Oscar Wilde (1845–1900). Although Wilde is best known for his plays, fiction, and The Ballad of Reading Gaol, he also wrote poetry in a symbolist vein and was the first Irish writer to experiment with prose poetry. However, the overtly cosmopolitan Wilde was not to have much influence on the future course of Irish writing. W. B. Yeats (1865–1939) was much more influential in the long run. Yeats, too, was influenced by his French contemporaries but consciously focused on an identifiably Irish content. As such, he was responsible for the establishment of the literary movement known as the Celtic Revival. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923. Apart from Yeats, much of the impetus for the Celtic Revival came from the work of scholarly translators who were aiding in the discovery of both the ancient sagas and Ossianic poetry and the more recent folk song tradition in Irish. One of the most significant of these was Douglas Hyde (1860–1949), later the first President of Ireland, whose Love Songs of Connacht was widely admired.

The 20th century

Yeats and modernism

In the 1910s, Yeats became acquainted with the work of James Joyce, and worked closely with Ezra Pound, who served as his personal secretary for a time. Through Pound, Yeats also became familiar with the work of a range of prominent modernist poets. He undoubtedly learned from these contacts, and from his 1916 book Responsibilities and Other Poems onwards his work, while not entirely meriting the label modernist, became much more hard-edged than it had been.

A second group of early 20th century Irish poets worth noting are those associated with the Easter Rising of 1916. Three of the Republican leadership, Patrick Pearse (1879–1916), Joseph Mary Plunkett (1879–1916) and Thomas MacDonagh (1878–1916), were noted poets. Although much of the verse written by them is predictably Catholic and Nationalist in outlook, they were competent writers and their work is of considerable historical interest. Pearse, in particular, shows the influence of his contact with the work of Walt Whitman. Individual from these groups is the Boyne Valley "peasant poet" Francis Ledwidge, killed in 1917 in World War I.

However, it was to be Yeats' earlier Celtic mode that was to be most influential. Amongst the most prominent followers of the early Yeats were Padraic Colum (1881–1972), F. R. Higgins (1896–1941), and Austin Clarke (1896–1974). In the 1950s, Clarke, returning to poetry after a long absence, turned to a much more

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