Poets and politics : continuity and reaction in Irish poetry, 1558-1625
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Poets and politics : continuity and reaction in Irish poetry, 1558-1625
(Critical conditions, 8)
Cork University Press in association with Field Day , University of Notre Dame Press in association with Field Day, 1998
- : pbk : us
Available at 6 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
"Published in the United States in 1998 by University of Notre Dame Press and in Ireland by Cork University Press"--T.p. verso of University of Notre Dame Press [ed.]
Includes bibliographical references and index
Description and Table of Contents
- Volume
-
: pbk : us ISBN 9780268038564
Description
A re-evaluation of the response of the intellectual elite of Irish bardic poets to the political, social and religious changes experienced during the Stuart period. In the absence of Gaelic administrative records, historians of early modern Ireland are fortunate to be able to draw upon a relatively large range of literary material in Irish from which to reconstruct contemporary mentalities and to investigate the nature of Gaelic reaction to the English crown's conquest and colonization of the island. During this period of upheaval, when the scene was set for a series of historical developments whose impact continues to reverberate today, bardic poets initiated a process of ideological re-evaluation which redefined indigenous notions of ethnicity, culture and religion. Modern scholarship has largely depicted the bardic elite as a static intellectual phenomenon and uncomprehending in the face of clearly modern English agrandissement. In the present study, an interpretative distinction is made between the formal bardic professional apparatus, which was conventional and formulaic in expression and outlook, and the influence of a modern dynamic evident in the work of some poets.
While the continuity of the bardic tradition is acknowledged, this book highlights significant elements of intellectual and cultural reappraisal in bardic poetry of the period. It is demonstrated how two revolutionary concepts, those of faith and fatherland and the posited merger of Gaelic and Old English identities in a common Irish nationality, are developed by "fileadha" or by poets from a bardic background. It has become an axiom of Celtic scholarship to view James VI and his reign as the point of termination for the bardic tradition and, by extension, aristocratic Gaelic literary culture. Such thinking is challenged in the present study. It is more correct to speak of a fundamental refocusing of the cultural and social assumptions underlying Gaelic poetry. The continued vitality of themes first broached by bardic poets in the work of a new generation of non-professional gentlemen poets testifies to the modernisation of a medieval elite. This work is an original analysis of one of the core debates in Irish literary history that will appeal to academics and students of medieval Irish literature and Irish cultural studies.
- Volume
-
ISBN 9781859181621
Description
This study highlights significant intellectual and cultural elements in bardic poetry, challenging depictions of the bardic elite as a static intellectual phenomenon, and fundamentally refocusing cultural and social assumptions underlying Gaelic poetry. The author argues that the mentalite of the poets cannot be understood without reference to the unprecedented social upheavals of their time. Recent historical scholarship has shown that the poets existed in a far less archaic society than has been previously assumed, and this is reinforced by the existence of an inherent dynamism in the poetry.
by "Nielsen BookData"