Irish Poet Research Articles

Wild, Wild Erie: Poems Inspired by Works of Art in the Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio by Paul Durcan

Reviewed by: Wild, Wild Erie: Poems Inspired by Works of Art in the Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio by Paul Durcan Ryan Schnurr Paul Durcan, Wild, Wild Erie: Poems Inspired by Works of Art in the Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio. Toledo: The Toledo Museum of Art, 2016. 215 pp. $26.00. In Wild, Wild Erie, Paul Durcan takes as his subject the holdings of the Toledo Museum of Art in Toledo, Ohio. The poems in this collection are ekphrastic in nature. They are thematically inextricable from the works to which they respond; each poem's title derives from its respective subject. Durcan, a contemporary Irish poet whose recent books include The Laughter of Mothers (2007) and Praise in Which I Live and Move and Have My Being (2012), writes from the perspective of the audience, or sometimes from inside the world of the painting. Sometimes, he takes the perspective of the artwork's subject(s). The poems—and poet—meander through the halls of the museum, responding to, or departing from, what is hanging on the walls. Durcan's poems are speculative and lively (The Irish Times once dubbed him "The most playful poet in Ireland"). He approaches even the most serious works of art with a sense of lighthearted humor; his poem on The [End Page 147] Adoration of the Magi, Bartolome-Esteban Murillo's Baroque-era treatment of the Christ Child, Madonna, and Magi, begins: "I'm a bonny wee boy and my name it is Jesus" (29). And he does not shy from the sensual—as in Still Life with Grapes, Chestnuts, Melons, and a Marble Cube (Antoine Berjon, circa 1800), in which he writes: "I would like you to allow my melons / To crawl around your study / Analyse their Gravitational Waves" (42). Neither does he shy from the sublime, especially as it pertains to landscapes such as Auvers, Landscape with Plough (Charles-François Daubigny, 1872–1877). Lines from Durcan's poem read: "What you are holding in your porcelain hand / Is all of life, past, present and to come, / All of the earth, all of the earth" (75). In the last few poems of the volume, Durcan's attention moves to art that takes as its subject the landscape of the Midwest itself. Silver Erie, a response to Maya Lin's 2012 sculpture (an outline of the lake and its tributary the Maumee River, cast in reclaimed silver), Durcan asks and answers: "Where am I? With whom am I? / Lake Erie!" (185). And in the ultimate poem, A Hammock, Durcan finally leaves the confines of the museum building to sit on a glass hammock next to Toledo's Monroe Street. His literary skill is evident in the rhythm of the language and ease of metaphor: Here I am reposing like a stag tilting in full flight,Swaying in the breeze under oak tree and maple,My carefree dangled fingers wine-tasting uncut grassIn urban parkland, watching the auto-traffic— (195) Together, these two poems represent the thin sliver of the book in which the Midwest and its landscape are the explicit subject of the art. Yet the Midwest is present throughout Wild, Wild Erie. Ohio, Ohioans, and the landscape and other features of the state make regular appearances. For example, Durcan sees in A Dutch Road (Anton Mauve, circa 1880) "A Dutch Road in Ohio—/The north road to Erie—/Which should be a tow-path—" (83). The Toledo Museum of Art itself is a constant presence. In the aforementioned still life, the speaker eludes "the Toledo Art Museum Gallery Guard" to touch the world of the painting (43). In "Ulysses and Penelope," a sixteenth-century painting by the Italian artist Francesco Primaticcio, he takes the voice of the museum curator, who, upon hearing of the painting's existence, immediately dispatches the funds to retrieve it, noting, "We could do with a touch of Ticcio in Toledo" (23). [End Page 148] The world of Wild, Wild Erie is multifaceted and transnational. In the final poem of the book, sitting on the glass hammock near Toledo's "main drag," Durcan styles himself "A connoisseur of public seating … From Paris, France, to Paris, Texas; / From...

Nótaí na nEagarthóirí: Editor's Notes

Nótaí na nEagarthóirí:Editor's Notes David Gardiner Welcome to the autumn issue of the New Hibernia Review. This issue arrives shortly after the summer issue. As an outsider, I feel this timing is entirely appropriate. Having traveled to the North, I was told about fall, even "autumn." And one day, I walked out and saw the oak leaves change and the ash trees glimmer. And then, the next day, the temperature was 12 degrees Fahrenheit (-11 Celsius). I couldn't help but think, "that was an enjoyable autumn." Not even Keats could have written an ode to the twenty-four-hour autumn. So, having—as I'm told—missed "this season of mists and mellow fruitfulness," the New Hibernia Review presents its autumn issue. The most evident and continuing innovation may be its focus on contemporary Irish art. Gillian Morrow's painting Lochlann is our current cover. As stated in the cover notes (page 79), it does not present the "backward glance" but something simultaneously tired, gifted, and forward-looking—something that yields much to consider in today's Ireland, European Union, and United States. Interestingly, while retaining the figurative tradition of Irish art throughout much of the country's history, Morrow is asking us to look beyond. I hope that this issue, and future ones, provides that glance forward. A first forward glance comes from the Cork poet and novelist Thomas McCarthy, who has graciously agreed to have segments of his journals published here. The reader may notice that his selection is slightly longer than typically featured, but his thoughts and observations make him one of the great chroniclers of his generation. McCarthy's journals are followed by another Cork narrative as Paul Delaney views Frank O'Connor's much-read, and revised, "Guests of the Nation" from a writer's perspective. Next, Joanna Jarząb-Napierała considers a work less known in the United States: Mike McCormack's wonderful Solar Bones, which might be [End Page 5] compared to Wittgenstein's Mistress in its engagement with the "tradition" and working at an angle from it. As we hear and pass on one deadline for Brexit after another, Shaun O'Connell's appreciation of Colm Tóibín's work reminds us of the boundaries that exist in both Tóibín's psyche and that of contemporary Irish writing. These boundaries are further addressed in the contentious markers of memorialization that E. Moore Quinn outlines in the story of Grosse Île and the long struggle to recognize this place of separation from Ireland and, indeed, the sickness of life itself. The Irish poet featured in this issue is Bernadette McIntyre. Her poems in Irish and their translations move gracefully from an elegy to the city of Cork to the characters of Jack Kerouac, once again demonstrating the fluidity and power of poetry in Irish. Our final essays reassess the Irish Revival. Steven Hrdlicka has unearthed heretofore unexamined letters from Jack B. Yeats to his friend, and literary benefactor of Maunsel & Co., Joseph Maunsell Hone. In a fascinating account of the letters and illustrations within them, Hrdlicka examines not only some of Yeats's only statements about his own aesthetic but also the state of Irish art as an international artist viewed it at the time. Furthermore, Ronan Crowley's writing on James Stephens, Brinsley MacNamara, and Eimar O'Duffy continues to widen the discussion of Irish writing during the first decades of the twentieth century beyond the Joyce-Yeats polarity and provides a nuanced biocritical reading of the period. Our last article, on George Moore and Elizabeth Gardner, has been contributed by Adrian Frazier, a consummate critic who remains a continually inquisitive and productive scholar. Following through extensive research that explores—as is Frazier's technique—a central conflict, we learn about Moore, his artistic pursuits, and the linchpin of his "Sex in Art," an essay that takes direct aim at artists such as the accomplished Gardner. But that's all summary so that the reader does not have to actually read the journal. This we understand regarding the genre but not the impulse. Indeed, we hope that you enjoy these intellectual walks with...

Yeatsian Modernism: Romantic Nationalism, Hero Worship, and the “Celtic Element” in Tender Is the Night and The Love of the Last Tycoon

Abstract Most scholars have overlooked F. Scott Fitzgerald's relationship to his Irish roots and the role that his “Irishness” plays in his writing. This article explores how the “Celtic Element” in literature, popularized by writers like Matthew Arnold and W. B. Yeats in the mid-to-late nineteenth century, influenced Fitzgerald's response to the crisis of modernity. By examining Fitzgerald's artistic and aesthetic relationship to his Irish heritage—tied to the debate between Arnold and Yeats on the characteristics and value of Celtic Literature—and by drawing textual comparisons between the work of Yeats and Fitzgerald, this article shows how, like Yeats, Fitzgerald employs the use of tragic heroes to promote premodern characteristics as a response to the materialism he saw tainting modern American society. Examining specifically Yeats's On Baile's Strand in relation to Tender Is the Night and The Love of the Last Tycoon, this article argues that Fitzgerald employs the same type of “romantic nationalism” as the great Irish poet and dramatist. Both authors' protagonists represent ancestral ideals and values that have been lost to the rise of modernity.

The Genealogy of Korean Modernism in Poetry: Focus on Translations of W. B. Yeats

This article describes the generational perspectives revealed in the views of three Korean poets, representing three generations of poetic circles, through their appropriations of the Irish poet W. B. Yeats, who experienced colonial rule as they did. Within the history of modern Korean poetry, Kim Ŏk (b. 1896) stands as a representative of the 1920s, Kim Kirim (b. 1908) of the 1930s, and Kim Suyŏng (1921–1968) of the postcolonial years, especially the 1960s. Though different in their styles and perspectives, they shared the roles of poet, literary critic, and translator and were flagship figures in their respective eras. Looking into the works and poetics of these three poets is tantamount to exploring the history of modern Korean poetry spanning the period between the 1920s and 1960s. Drawing on the fact that all three poets were interested in translating and interpreting Yeats, this article aims to trace the genealogy of Korean modernist poetry by exploring the generational differences in their views on poetry through their mediation of Yeats.

Death of the Soldier and Immortality of War in Frank Ormsby’s A "Northern Spring"

The paper analyzes the collection of the Northern Irish poet Frank Ormsby entitled A Northern Spring published in 1986. On the basis of selected poems, the author of this paper aims to examine the poet’s reflections about World War II, the lives of the soldiers, and the things that remain after a military combat, which are both physical and illusive. The poems included in the volume present the author’s reflections upon the senselessness of war and dying, short lives of the soldiers, the awareness of their own meaninglessness in comparison to the broader picture, and the contradictory and desperate need to be remembered nevertheless. They also show what is left of the soldiers and the war, as well as how life goes on, with or without them.

Essays on Nima Yushij: Animating Modernism in Persian Poetry

Essays on Nima Yushij: Animating Modernism in Persian Poetry

After Eighty Years: Experimental Study of Atmospheric Corrosion in the Metallic Dome of Hafez’s tomb, Shiraz, Iran

ABSTRACTHafez’s tomb was constructed on the grave of the well-known Iranian poet in Shiraz, in the 1930s. The dome of this monument is made of copper metal and has been exposed to the urban environment for 80 years. In this study, corrosion mechanisms and conservation conditions of the metallic dome of the Hafez’s tomb are investigated by analytical methods including optical microscopy, ICP-MS, SEM-EDX, and X-ray diffraction. The results showed that the dome is constructed from many copper sheets that are hammered to shape the dome. The corrosion products formed on the surface of copper sheets include copper oxide and copper trihydroxichlorides. In fact, the corrosion mechanism occurring in the metallic dome consists of copper oxidation and redeposition of copper II products because of reaction with air pollutants.

Letters from Rose Macaulay to Katharine Tynan

ABSTRACTThe article presents and discusses thirteen previously unpublished letters from Rose Macaulay to the Irish poet and novelist Katharine Tynan, who in 1913 initiated a correspondence and friendship when she wrote to congratulate Rose on winning a prestigious and valuable Novel Competition which she too had entered. Katharine continued to express admiration for Rose’s writing, especially her novels, not only in her letters to Rose (not preserved), but also in memoirs and articles. Rose in turn praised Katharine’s work, especially her poetry, emphasising particularly the comfort it gave her and others in wartime. She herself had lost several friends, including Rupert Brooke, and was anxious about her brother, who was serving in the army. Katharine’s two sons were in the army too. Rose took an interest in Katharine’s daughter, Pamela Hinkson, who was showing early promise as a writer. In 1925 Katharine sent Rose a novel, The Victors, by Peter Deane. When Rose replied, she did not realise that Peter Deane was a pseudonym used by Pamela, let alone that the sad story was closely based on the post-war experiences of Katharine’s elder son.

Thomas Moore’s Poetry in the Translations of A. A. Kursinsky and V. Ya. Bryusov

Objectives: The article provides a detailed, holistic analysis of ten translations of the lyrical works of the Irish poet Thomas Moore, created by A.A. Kursinsky and included into his poetic collection “Poluteny. Lyrical poems published in 1894 and 1895 years”. Peculiarities of the perception of this poetic collection are characterized by V.Ya. Bryusov, who noticed A.A. Kursinsky's intention to “imitate ruthlessly” to K.D. Balmont, with the adoption of both his “appearance” and “the very sense of his poetry” and proposed his own interpretations of two Thomas Moore’s poems from the list of previously translated by A.A. Kursinsky. Methods: In the methodological aspect, the article is based on the foundations of historical poetics, set forth in the fundamental works of Alexander N. Veselovsky, V.М. Zhirmunsky, the theses of M.M. Bakhtin's theory about dialogue and “stranger's word”, the works of the representatives of the Leningrad school of comparative-historical literature, created by M.P. Alekseev. In the process of analysis, sociocultural, comparative-historical, cultural-historical and comparative-typological methods of research are used. Findings: At the time of the appearance of A.A. Kursinsky's translations from the lyrical poetry of Thomas Moore, the free translating-imitations that freely interpreted the ideological and artistic content of the original were widely known to the public as well as the “realistic” translations that were intended to reproduce as accurately as possible the spirit and form of the Irish original. A.A. Kursinsky found some valuable material for philosophical reflection in the poetry of Moore and skillfully preserved the features of the rhythm and melodies of the original works. Moore’s poetry attracted V.Ya. Bryusov’s attention dew to the interpretations of A.A. Kursinsky. V.Ya. Bryusov offered his vision of the works of the Irish poet, reinterpreted separate thoughts and images in a new way. Novelty: In the framework of the comparative analysis of Thomas Moore’s translations written by A.A. Kursinsky and V.Ya. Bryusov, the authors of the article form representations of Russian translators about the peculiarities of perception of ideas, images, artistic details, which characterize the original texts of the Irish poet-predecessor.

Poland in the Irish Nationalist Imagination, 1772–1922: Anti-Colonialism within Europe, by Róisín Healy

In his November 1798 speech from the dock, Theobald Wolfe Tone linked his revolutionary endeavours to two famous predecessors: ‘I have attempted to follow the same line in which Washington succeeded and Kościuszko failed.’ Michael Balfe’s 1843 aria, ‘When the Fair Land of Poland’, remained a favourite in Ireland throughout the nineteenth century, while Lady Wilde (mother of Oscar) was one of many Irish poets who published pro-Poland verse. In the early twentieth century, Constance Markiewicz found inspiration in the sacrifices of Polish women. From the period of Poland’s three partitions in the eighteenth century to its re-emergence after the First World War, many Irish sympathised with the fate of the Poles, finding historical or religious links between their two lands. Róisín Healy’s monograph examines 150 years of Irish–Polish relations and discovers a sustained imaginative encounter, as Irish nationalists looked to their European neighbour for support and inspiration. Healy builds on the work of (among others) Brian Earls, Katarzyna Gmerek and John Merchant to produce a volume that is marked by thorough scholarship and nuanced argument. Though she alludes to the profound changes in Europe since Poland’s accession to the European Union in 2004, her focus is on the period from the first partition of Poland in 1772 to a partitioned Ireland’s independence in 1922. She is careful to avoid any monolithic pronouncements on the motives behind Irish representations of Poland or on their capacity to effect change. Similarly, she is careful to note at the onset that Poland was itself a bundle of potential national causes, with its Ruthenian and Ukrainian minorities as interested in self-rule from Poland as the Poles were from Russia, Prussia and Austria. What becomes clear is that most nineteenth-century Irish commentators overlooked such national complexities, shaping their idea of Poland to fit their own immediate needs.

Dobbs and the Tiger: The Yeatses’ Intimate Occult

The mediumistic relationship between W. B. Yeats and his wife George (née Hyde Lees) is an important guide to the creative work produced by the Irish poet after their marriage in 1917. Their unusual collaboration illuminates the esoteric philosophy expounded in the two very different versions of Yeats’s book A Vision (1925 and 1937). It is also theoretically interesting in itself, not only in the early period when the automatic experiments produced the ‘system’ expounded in A Vision, but also in the 1920s and 1930s, when the Yeatses' relationship had matured into an astonishingly productive mature partnership. By analysing symbols the Yeatses themselves used to conceive of their joint work, particularly the symbolic structures and constructed selves of the collaborators, and particularly in the later period, this essay attempts to engage with the authors’ own terminology and understanding as a method for reading their joint authorship.

‘A Thread to the Afterlife’ - Textiles and the Otherworld in Irish Poetry: Yeats, Boland, Heaney and Meehan

This essay explores fabric, clothing and textile motifs in Irish poetry concerned with the relationship between this life and the afterlife. It intersplices readings of poems by W.B.Yeats, Eavan Boland, Seamus Heaney and Paula Meehan which acknowledge the fact that doubleness of presence and absence is integral to all human lives, and which are alert to the fact that this same duality is already embedded in man’s engagement with cloth. The essay argues that Irish poetry attends to the dense physicality, immediacy and depth texture of textile materials, as a key image complex allowing negotiation of significant loss, including the task of reconstructing life’s meaning following bereavement. Therefore, the essay explores how a concern with texture, processing, feeling and mood is facilitated in a special way through the haptic power of fabric symbolism in Irish elegiac poetry. It proposes that by mediating the theme of afterlife as a space which allows us to imagine multiple alternative lives in the here-and-now, fabric imagery as deployed by Irish poets challenges us to accept both our losses in this world and our on-going potential for life-renewal.

Interior Design Based on Forough Farrokhzad Poetry

The main purpose of this study is to correlate between art, literature, architect and visualization to translate the emotions and aspirations embodied in a well-known poet such as Forough Farrokhzad. Forough Farrokhzad widely regarded as a famous Iranian poet and an advocate for women’s liberation and independence. She wrote during a time when Iranian women were facing extensive discrimination and prejudice. Many of her works are rich in feminist related aspects of Iranian women. By visualization of Forough’s inner feelings, one can see a great revaluation in society towards women feelings and emotions. Like any other human, poets and artist both have thoughts and dreams rich in colors and words capsulizing their imaginary world in possible dreams which are all related to each person’s personality, culture, environment and etc. One of the ways to understand a poet is to understand the depth of his/her thoughts through his/her poems. Thus the main purpose of this research is to review interior design based on in depth analysis of related poems. Psychoanalysis of symbols, themes and colors used in poems, can be used to supplement words in extracting symptoms and energy depicting the poet inner feelings and imaginations when designing. The results of the discussing symbols and colors used by Forough in most of her poems, indicate her interest in life, death, love, society, intellectuality and philosophy. Finally the researchers through usage of visual effects and pictures used in her designs tries to assist the viewers to understand and feel the poet’s emotions and passions for life at the time of creating the poems. Thus, it can be assumed that the interior design is based on poetry rich in motion and dynamism.

Feminist Culture and Politics in Iranian Women’s Post-Revolutionary Poetry (1979-2017)

This article shows how Iranian female poets in the post-revolutionary period, through their poetry, transgress several socio-cultural boundaries. The strategy of these women poets is the same: to become more visible, to raise their voice, to resist and to create a new identity not far off from their self. The article shows how the Iranian women poets in question attempt to promote ethical relations between human subjects through using their feminine writing. Their poems highly criticise an Iranian historical tradition that does not sufficiently recognise the presence of two different subjects—masculine and feminine— and which is not concerned enough with the ethics of relations between subjects. These poems can be analysed in terms of an Irigarayian framework that argues for a woman’s ability to establish herself as an independent subject. The Iranian authors/poets started to reform and rethink gender, and their poetry opens doors to Bakhtinian dialogism and eventually Iranian feminism. The article argues, using Irigaray, that it is essential for Iranian women to create a “house of language”, a place in which they can practice living and articulating, so that they can achieve self-enunciation.

‘A Thread to the Afterlife’ - Textiles and the Otherworld in Irish Poetry: Yeats, Boland, Heaney and Meehan

This essay explores fabric, clothing and textile motifs in Irish poetry concerned with the relationship between this life and the afterlife. It intersplices readings of poems by W.B.Yeats, Eavan Boland, Seamus Heaney and Paula Meehan which acknowledge the fact that doubleness of presence and absence is integral to all human lives, and which are alert to the fact that this same duality is already embedded in man’s engagement with cloth. The essay argues that Irish poetry attends to the dense physicality, immediacy and depth texture of textile materials, as a key image complex allowing negotiation of significant loss, including the task of reconstructing life’s meaning following bereavement. Therefore, the essay explores how a concern with texture, processing, feeling and mood is facilitated in a special way through the haptic power of fabric symbolism in Irish elegiac poetry. It proposes that by mediating the theme of afterlife as a space which allows us to imagine multiple alternative lives in the here-and-now, fabric imagery as deployed by Irish poets challenges us to accept both our losses in this world and our on-going potential for life-renewal.

The Post-Pastoral Elements in Michael Longley’s Poetics

When discussing the internal contradictions and issues of ideology and representation posed by the literary pastoral, Lawrence Buell suggests the need for “a more mature environmental aesthetics” than the pastoral provides (32). Terry Gifford insists that “‘A mature environmental aesthetics’ would need to recognise that some literature has gone beyond the closed circuit of pastoral and anti-pastoral to achieve a vision of an integrated natural world that includes the human” (148). The Irish poet Michael Longley has increasingly avoided pastoral’s anthropocentric worldview that the universe centres on humans; he reassigns preference to the concerns of the biosphere, including its human participants. He seamlessly integrates social systems and ecosystems, proposing what Donna Potts terms a “more radical reordering of cultural values” (79). This article analyses the ecocritical value of Longley’s poetry in light of Terry Gifford’s suggested requisites for post-pastoral literature.

The Post-Pastoral Elements in Michael Longley’s Poetics

When discussing the internal contradictions and issues of ideology and representation posed by the literary pastoral, Lawrence Buell suggests the need for “a more mature environmental aesthetics” than the pastoral provides (32). Terry Gifford insists that “‘A mature environmental aesthetics’ would need to recognise that some literature has gone beyond the closed circuit of pastoral and anti-pastoral to achieve a vision of an integrated natural world that includes the human” (148). The Irish poet Michael Longley has increasingly avoided pastoral’s anthropocentric worldview that the universe centres on humans; he reassigns preference to the concerns of the biosphere, including its human participants. He seamlessly integrates social systems and ecosystems, proposing what Donna Potts terms a “more radical reordering of cultural values” (79). This article analyses the ecocritical value of Longley’s poetry in light of Terry Gifford’s suggested requisites for post-pastoral literature.

Persian Literature in the World literature

The subject of the present research is in the field of comparativeliterature. It aims at studying and analyzing the effect of Persianliterature, especially Maulana’s works, on the authors, thinkers, andtranslators. In the present study, it is attempted to know the great Englishand American literary figures who have provided outstanding worksthrough translation or adaptation and they have played a great role inknowing the Persian literature and making it known in the Englishspeakingcountries.Maulana is the well-known Iranian poet and mystic of the seventhcentury hegira. He is mostly known for his mystic poems. He is indeedone of the great Sufi poets. His simple and appealing words areassociated with a fervent love and zeal. His soft language and charmingwords arising from his broken heart express the mystic facts in a specialway. His view toward allegories and mentioning different parables andtales while expressing a mystic subject has simplified the intentions ofthe khanqah’s hermits for the ordinary people(1).

ОБРАЗ ШУТА В СТИХОТВОРЕНИИ У. Б. ЙЕЙТСА «ШУТОВСКОЙ КОЛПАК»

The article analyzes one of the early poems of the Irish poet, dramatist and writer W. B. Yeats “The Cap and Bells”. Special attention is paid to jester’s image which anticipates the appearance of poet’s famous masks - Tom the Lunatic and Crazy Jane. “The Cap and Bells” is compared with other poems of the collection; the researcher identifies the parallels between this poem and Yeats’s late lyrics. It is shown that “The Cap and Bells” is one of the poet’s early attempts to reveal the nature of interrelations between the poetical and non-poetical state of the world, to bring it to a common denominator, a certain ideal, “Unity of Being”.

Mending the Torn Fragments of a Relationship: An Interview with Sarah Strong

Sarah Strong is a practising artist who lives in Islington, London. In this interview, Strong describes her charged and at times very difficult relationship with her mother, the Irish poet Eithne Strong (1923–99), as well as her unconventional upbringing in a commune on the south side of Dublin. She discusses her decision to leave Ireland for London after discovering she was pregnant, and contemplates the joys and challenges of becoming a mother at a young age, far from home and in difficult economic circumstances. This interview also highlights how Strong's relationship with her mother, as well as with the maternal more generally, has found expression in her visual art and, more recently, in her film and poetry.