British Generals Research Articles

Obliquity in the Poetry of Paul Muldoon and Medbh McGuckian

OBLIQUITY IN THE POETRY OF PAUL MULDOON AND MEDBH McGUCKIAN SHANE MURPHY the fragmented, multivoiced complexity of much mainstream Irish poetry is often dismissed as fatally hermetic; what is allusive is elitist and insincere , a latter-day art for art’s sake. Iain Sinclair’s polemical introduction to Conductors of Chaos, for example, makes the remarkable claim that in anthologies of Irish poetry, “[e]vent is adulterated by self-regarding tropes, false language” (Sinclair xiii). His subsequent acerbic diatribe—that “[t]oo much contemporary verse arrives smirking on the page dressed up for the anthology audition. Pre-programmed and dead in the mouth” (Sinclair xiii–xiv)—betrays an unawareness of the many political and poetic functions of obliquity and self-reflexivity. Confusing postmodern skepsis with what Bernard O’Donoghue has termed “self-admiring or introverted crypticism” (14), Sinclair’s attitude is symptomatic of a wider unease among reviewers toward the complexity of much mainstream British and Irish poetry. In this article I intend to redress this prejudice against obliquity by examining its functions and effects in the work of two Northern Irish poets, Paul Muldoon and Medbh McGuckian. In particular, I wish to focus almost exclusively on one aspect of this obliquity: intertextuality. Postmodern intertextuality is, in Linda Hutcheon’s words, “a formal manifestation of both a desire to close the gap between past and present of the reader and a desire to rewrite the past in a new context” (Poetics 118). When the literary or historical quotations and allusions self-reflexively manifest their status as intertexts in a poem, the reader, by actively searching out the poem’s links with its sources, can produce a new reading of both the present and past texts. Hutcheon’s personal conception of postmodernism —a “postmodernism of complicity and critique, of reflexivity and historicity” (Politics 11)—counters a common understanding of the movement as an “unprincipled neo-pragmatist relativism” (Docherty 196). OBLIQUITY IN THE POETRY OF PAUL MULDOON AND MEDBH McGUCKIAN 76 Her reading of the postmodern illuminates any analysis of Muldoon’s work, as it recognizes the multivoiced potential inherent in his use of source material.1 Although the popular conception of postmodernism suggests an unending play between inter-reflecting mirrors, implying infinite simulation (Kearney 5), Paul Muldoon offers a related, but significantly different, image to describe his poetic practice, one in accordance with Hutcheon’s emphasis on ironic perspective. “I’ve become very interested in structures that can be fixed like mirrors at angles to each other—it relates to narrative form—so that new images can emerge from the setting up of the poems in relation to each other: further ironies are possible, further mischief is possible” (Haffenden 136). Muldoon’s narratives are neither self-focused nor infinite as such; rather they distort the real, alienating the viewers’ perceptions , making them see things in a different light. When asked, “Is there a risk of the poems becoming rather hermetic? And of turning a book of poems into a hall of mirrors?” Muldoon’s reply is instructive: “Well, ‘hermetic .’ That depends whether you feel lost or enlarged in a hall of mirrors” (“Interview” 14). Reviewers, however, have often found themselves hopelessly lost. Concentrating on the difficulty of his verse, they have pejoratively referred to Muldoon as “a sophisticated high-gloss technician” (Mole 49), “. . . likely to be accused of formalism, an unfeeling playing around with the tragedies of Ulster” (Scammell 119). The most notorious example of hostile criticism is John Carey’s appraisal of “Meeting the British” as . . . another poem one would gladly trade in for some explanation of what it is about is Muldoon’s title-piece, which tells of some British generals who apparently give blankets infected with smallpox to some North American Indians. “The first recorded case of germ warfare,” says the blurb. But where is it recorded, and what really happened, are the questions you come away from Muldoon’s brief, uninformative lines, wanting to ask. His refusal to communicate is itself a political decision—a cliquish nonchalance. The poems stand around smugly, knowing that academic annotators will come running. (56) The charge leveled at Muldoon is grave: that the poem smugly refuses to communicate to all but...

Who are the British generals?

Who are the British generals?

Redeeming Vietnam: Techno-Thriller Novels of the 1980s

In 1978, General Sir John Hackett, former commander in chief of the British Army of the Rhine and NATO's Northern Army Group, joined forces with six other leading British generals and admirals. Together they wrote The Third World War: August 1985, a novel that vividly describes a Soviet air and land attack on Western Europe and naval battles in the North Atlantic.' Both the Soviet attack and NATO's response remain below the threshold, until the Soviets destroy Birmingham, England, killing 300,000 people and wounding an additional 250,000. In retaliation, NATO launches four nuclear missiles at Minsk. Its destruction sparks national liberation movements throughout Eastern Europe and the non-Russian republics of the Soviet Union, and leads to a coup in the Kremlin. According to Hackett et al., WW III lasts eighteen days and ends with a complete Western victory. The Third World War received rave reviews in England. In the United States, New York Times military correspondent Drew Middleton described it as a compelling account of the utmost seriousness, fascination, realism, readability, and relevance. By 1979

The Hidden War: British Intelligence Operations during the American Revolution

I MMENSE problems confronted His Majesty's commanders in North America during the War of Independence. Foremost of these difficulties was the British objective itself-subduing a rebellious people dispersed throughout an area comprising almost one million square miles. Unlike European states, America could not be conquered merely by seizing its major cities; its political-economic power was too diffuse. Moreover, Americans were well armed and organized and would not timidly submit to occupation. They also possessed a political ideology and glimmerings of nationalism that presaged the unbridled violence of the Napoleonic Wars and imposed a daunting array of conflicting requirements on the Royal Army. The British could achieve victory only by conducting continual offensives and maintaining sizable garrisons. Yet available military forces were severely limited. Superior troop quality and naval mobility could only partially remedy the ill effects of Britain's dearth of soldiers. An accurate forecast of rebel intentions and capabilities was needed as well so that British commanders could more precisely husband and allocate their combat resources. But how were the British to gain an accurate idea of what the rebels intended? The technology that now permits the rapid accumulation, analysis, and dissemination of information-military intelligence being the sum of these functions-did not then exist: spies had to rely, for example, on disappearing inks, a stratagem well within the capabilities of presentday Cub Scouts. Furthermore, the vast distances over which the British had to operate often dated even the most accurate intelligence. Yet by I78i the British had largely overcome the many obstacles to effective intelligence and were predicting American intentions and actions with uncanny accuracy. This essay will show how the Royal Army responded to the challenge by examining the experiences of Gen. Sir Henry Clinton, the third commander of the Royal Army. There are several compelling reasons for focusing on Clinton. First, his career and military education were typical of successful British generals. Second, he served longer in America than any of the crown's other

'An English Barrack in the Oriental Seas'? India in the Aftermath of the First World War

During the last ninety years of British rule in India, the ‘Jewel of the Empire’ was, as Lord Salisbury remarked in 1882, easily regarded by many British imperialists as ‘an English barrack in the Oriental Seas from which we may draw any number of troops without paying for them’. In more prosaic terms India was seen as a permanent strategic reserve and the principal means by which British interests were secured throughout Asia, from Suez to Wei-hei-wei. As such, India was a central component in the British imperial system. The empire's matchless prestige, its wealth and apparent power all stemmed in large measure from India. In the second half of the nineteenth century the Raj, the East India trade and the Indian Army demonstrated a combination of power which Britain's imperial rivals might envy but never surpass. The central importance of India is illustrated by the Victorian conception of imperial defence, which was seen to depend on the twin pillars of naval supremacy and the defence of India. The only serious military commitment which British planners admitted before the turn of the century was the possibility of meeting a Russian invasion of India across the North West Frontier. This threat existed mostly in the minds of British generals. Britain and Russia came closest to war on the Frontier at the time of the Penjdeh incident in 1885, but even then the likelihood of a Russian expedition against India was hardly more than remote. Nevertheless, the threat of invasion was the principal rationale for the nature and size of the Army in India and this consideration guided Lord Kitchener's reforms of the Indian Army during his time as Commander-in-Chief from 1902 to 1909.

The British Generals Talk: A Review Essay

The British Generals Talk: A Review Essay

Sir Henry Clinton and Army Profiteering: A Neglected Aspect of the Clinton-Cornwallis Controversy

J N any examination of the British side of the war of the American Revolution, the controversy between Sir Henry Clinton and Lord Charles Cornwallis inevitably looms large. Yet the controversy is like an iceberg: what is easily seen is so imposing that it draws the attention of the observer away from the far more important mass concealed below the surface. Probing at the concealed mass has only recently begun. Starting from the bitter public squabble over the responsibility for the surrender at Yorktown which provided such an undignified anticlimax to the war on the British side, William B. Willcox has shown that the controversy was the culmination of long-standing animosities between the two British generals. He has also shown that such animosities were a constant feature of Clinton's personal relationships.' In conjunction with a psychologist, Frederick Wyatt, Willcox has used these animosities as a key to the understanding of Clinton's personality and has related the findings to his capacity as a commander and performance as commander-in-chief.2 But the Clinton-Cornwallis controversy was not confined to the Yorktown question. Less publicized at the time and for that reason, perhaps, largely ignored by historians was the issue of profiteering by officers and civilians on the staff of the British army in America. An examination of this issue tends to confirm and extend the psychological analysis of Clinton proposed by Willcox and

George Washington's Opponents: British Generals and Admirals in American Revolution

George Washington's Opponents: British Generals and Admirals in American Revolution

George Washington's Opponents: British Generals and Admirals in the American Revolution

George Washington's Opponents: British Generals and Admirals in the American Revolution

George Washington's Opponents, British Generals and Admirals in the American Revolution.

George Washington's Opponents, British Generals and Admirals in the American Revolution.

George Washington's Opponents: British Generals and Admirals in the American Revolution.

George Washington's Opponents: British Generals and Admirals in the American Revolution.

The Pathology of Leadership

That the illness of political figures can shape history is well-known. Hugh L'Etang, an English physician and editor, brings the chronicle up to date by recounting how, since 1908, 11 out of 13 British prime ministers and 6 out of 10 American presidents have suffered from some degree of incapacitating illness while in office. Illness also affects the second echelon of decision-makers, cabinet ministers, and generals. While Woodrow Wilson's cerebral thrombosis and hemiparesis are wellknown to Americans as a major cause for the failure of the treaty of Versailles, a less familiar item is Franklin Roosevelt's propensity for surrounding himself with sick and ailing cabinet ministers and other advisers. Dr. L'Etang astutely points out that at the time of the Suez crisis, Anthony Eden was suffering from recurrent biliary-tract disease and John Foster Dulles from the preliminary symptoms of his intestinal cancer. Even during World War I the British generals

George Washington's Opponents: British Generals and Admirals in the American Revolution

George Washington's Opponents: British Generals and Admirals in the American Revolution