Considering Liminality as a Passage to the Otherworld in the Early Irish Tale Aislinge Óenguso and Oscar Wilde’s The Fisherman and his Soul

Abstract

An important piece of early Irish literary material, Óengus’ dream bears several similarities with Oscar Wilde’s The Fisherman and his Soul. It will be demonstrated that liminality (from limen meaning “threshold” in Latin), as epitomized by the presence of water in both tales, can be interpreted as a passage to the Otherworld. It is the liminal and otherworldly aspect of water that brings into existence the universal human aspiration towards the supernatural unification with the cosmos and the theme of all-encompassing love; recurrent topoi in Irish literature from the very beginnings until today. Furthermore, Wilde’s tale is not so much about the “devotional revolution” of religious transformation in a post-Famine Ireland, but an even more universal expression of a “revolutionary devotion”: the Fisherman’s unusual attachment to the forbidden. This supernatural yet human feeling of transition, “in-betweenness” or metaxy makes both tales operate in several dimensions across time and geographical space.