Irish Poetry 101: The Self-Study Course - [1] On-line Resources for Irish Poetry
K. E. Dennis
promised, more or less, to see what I could do to outline the basics of
“Irish Poetry 101: The Self-Study Course,” & to some degree the research
I’ve been doing on that kept me from imploding in the last mo. or so.
So this is post 1 of 4: On-Line Resources. No. 2 is a bibliography of
[non-electronic] texts. No. 3 is on finding those texts. No. 4 is a
case study of one old Irish text, w/ a modern adaptation / translation
into English.
[I’m working yet on No. 5, which may never be completed: it was meant
to be a simple summary of some of the characteristics of metre, rhyme, &
other structural elements in traditional Irish poetry – but if you think
these 4 posts are long, you should see the working file for *that* one.]
“Irish poetry,” here, primarily means an filíocht as Gaeilge – poetry
in the Irish language. However, some sources on Irish poetry in English
are included.
~~~
An Introduction:
Pete Stuart [hi Pete!] started me on this project by asking whether it
is necessary to be able to read Irish in order to understand the poetry
created in that language.
Undeniably, the true answer is yes. What becomes more & more apparent
as one wrestles w/ the treacherous work of translation from/to any
language is how emotional, sensual & aesthetic aspects of the original
literary work are irretrievably lost as it is lifted from its linguistic
& cultural context.
This is far less true for non-fiction, for scientific works [unless
imprecision is introduced in the translation]. But for poetry, the
words themselves, their patterns, sounds & affects are desperately
important.
Yet there’s another answer, drawn from my personal experience. It *is*
possible to appreciate the verse structures, the metres, the rhymes, the
assonance & consonance, the sheer technical virtuosity of a poem, w/o
being able to speak or even read the language in which it is written,
provided one understands the rules of pronunciation in that language.
If you’re dubious about that premise, let me note that *I* cannot speak
Irish, & have never taken a class in the language, despite having paved
the road to Hades & back again w/ my frequent intentions. I can read it
only w/ several dictionaries & rulebooks @ hand to help puzzle out the
grammar, & that’s w/ great effort [& many exclamations in the worst
vocabulary I can muster, in English & French, which I *do* speak].
The motivation to go to such bother grew slowly, as I explored Irish
poetry in English & in translation & became progressively more & more
dissatisfied w/ the sense of reading thru a glass, darkly….
Considering what a lazy creature I am by nature, & despite the
impression I seem to have created in some of being the literary sort
[note to KateH: I could no more teach on Joyce than tap dance on water.
Could you not schedule me for the demography & population bio lecture
instead?], in 9 cases out of 10 I’d rather read non-fiction, & science
journals, than anything else.
It’s damned near a miracle I’ve been able to extract so much enjoyment &
understanding from this process. Yet I do, & the gods alone know why.
Anyway, let me offer another example.
I have not a word of Japanese. All right, a slight exaggeration, I
actually know quite a few words in Japanese, mostly culinary. But tho I
mightn’t starve to death in Japan, it would only be because so many
Japanese folks speak English. I certainly cannot read the language.
Still, a few yrs ago the following haiku [OK, OK, I know that word too]
& its English translation appeared on a “Poetry In Motion” sign in the
NYC subway [hi, Tony D!].
I’ve forgotten the name of this style of orthography, in which the Latin
alphabet is used to represent Japanese sounds, but it was the first time
I had *seen* a haiku’s sound structure in its original language. & I was
so struck, I rode several stations past my stop while frantically
scribbling it onto the margins of the NY Times:
komu to yú mo
kono toki aru wo
koji to yú wo
komu to wa mataji
koji to yú mono wo
- Ótomo no Sakanoe, Japan, 8th c.
You say, “I will come,”
& you do not come.
Now you say, “I will not come,”
so I shall expect you.
Have I learned to understand you?
- trans, Kenneth Rexroth
~~~
[I should note that the fadas properly should be straight lines,
representing long, stressed vowels – but I can’t seem to get the codes
for those symbols to work, & the fadas accomplish much the same
purpose.]
Now, IMHO, the translation is in & of itself quite captivating, no
matter the tone – wistful, angry, teasing - in which you read it. But
just *look* @ the internal structure of that original!
[pauses, lets readers mull it over]
Every time I look @ that wee poem I’m astonished all over again @ the
poet’s skill – the precision & discipline w/ which she created that
sensual & emotive gem of expression.
& I see, as I certainly hadn’t before, why the Japanese make such a fuss
over haiku. It’s a damned sight more difficult to write sensibly w/
such a tight & intricate pattern of sounds than I previously had
understood, tho I’ve read many an example in translation.
Right, now – enough digression. Back to “Irish Poetry: On-line
Resources.”
~~~~
I know of only two particularly pertinent sources on-line for
traditional poetry in Irish:
CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts
http://www.ucc.ie/celt/index.html
This is a wonderful resource for the original texts; however, for those
who have no Irish, it has the drawback providing no translation in most
instances.
Mediaeval Irish Poetry
http://www.dnaco.net/~mobrien/irishptr/index.html
This not only offers a nice collection of poems w/ translations, but
includes large chunks of explication of the verse structures, the rhyme
patterns, & the various preferred metres, at
http://www.dnaco.net/~mobrien/irishptr/drchpoem/index.html. It’s
limited in period, but informative.
[My apologies to Pete Stuart: when he asked the question that started me
on this hunt, I had utterly forgotten this latter site.]
If anyone knows of other Web sites on poetry in Irish, particularly in
the early modern period, I’d warmly appreciate hearing of them.
There are a lot of web sites featuring individual & sometimes collected
works of particular Irish poets, in Irish & English, but you'd be
astonished @ the dearth of sites devoted to an filíocht as Gaeilge….
But as a resources for identifying works by Irish poets, to yield
keywords for entering in your favourite search engines, see:
A Preliminary Bibliography Of Modern Gaelic Literature In
Translation
http://www.library.ucg.ie/bibltran/
Nollaig Mac Congáil & Gearóidín Uí Nia of NUI, Galway have assembled
bibliographies for a raft of writers [not just poets] that can be quite
helpful for tracking down texts, both bilingual & not. However, they do
not include web links to any works: this site simply helps identify what
to hunt for w/ your favourite search engines.
~~~~
Some on-line sources for modern Irish poetry primarily in English:
Salmon Poetry
http://www.salmonpoetry.com/
I am deeply intrigued by this publisher’s list, rife as it is w/ works
by 'new' poets, most of whom I’ve never read, but many I know of as
active figures in the present [English-language] poetry scene in
Ireland. Rita Ann Higgins, James Simmons, Leland Bardwell, Mary
O'Donnell, Fred Johnston, Tom O'Malley, Breda Sullivan, Jean O'Brien, &
Maighread Medbh are all represented here - along w/ John O'Donohue [of
Anam Cara fame] & a goodly selection of Irish & American writers [many
temporary or long-term ex-pats]. Almost all listings include a sample
poem from the volume.
In addition, Salmon Poetry publish the critical anthology, The White
Page /An Bhileog Bhan, mentioned above, & book of essays on poetry
writing by Anne Le Marquand Hartigan. For insight into the lively world
of writing in Ireland today, one could do worse than peruse these
listings – made all the more tempting by the offer of discounts for
on-line purchases {she says, trying not to drool}.
Poetry Ireland / Éigse Éireann
http://www.poetryireland.ie/
Sponsored by both Arts Councils of the ROI & NI, this site lists
publications, readings, poetry-related events, competitions, & some
interesting links for info on writers active today.
On a different note, there are two nice wee collections of [mostly] 20th
c. Irish poetry in English that I know:
Irish Poetry Page
http://www.spinfo.uni-koeln.de/~dm/eire.html
Unfortunately, this has not been updated in more than two yrs, perhaps
because Dagmar Müller graduated? But it's got poems from some 24 poets…
& as a bonus, if you click the link for "Oscar Wilde," you'll get to
Eamon O'Brien's "Food for the Soul" page,
http://www.well.com/user/eob/poetry.html, which has a huge no. of mostly
British writers, but a quite exhaustive list of Wilde's poems, ditto for
Yeats, & a smattering of Irish-language gems [not to mention lyrics from
several Sinead O'Connor songs].
The Aisling [contemporary Irish poetry]
http://home1.inet.tele.dk/jenskoch/aisling/aisling.htm
This page features a small no. of fine works - several of them
modern-day vision poems - from a select group of poets writing in
English.
~~~~
In any event, I have yet to find *any* Irish poetry web site, as rich as
is Ger Cunningham's poetry page in Partisan Cheese, which has, I note,
recently moved:
A little bit of Culture ...
http://www.enteract.com/~abardubh/poetry/
If I've counted correctly, there are over 300 poems here – a substantial
no. in Irish – making it an anthology to rival any vol. I've encountered
in the RW [although, technically, I suppose one shouldn't count most of
those in the Rest of the World category into the comparison].
For which, my most sincere thanks are due to all you good folks who have
posted those poems here in s.c.i.
& thanks especially to Ger, from this still-novice poetry lover, for the
time & energy he has expended HTML-ing all those glorious words,
permitting anyone in the world w/ access to the Web to sample something
of the cornucopia of Irish poetry.
<a deep & heartfelt bow, w/ a dark-winged flourish>
Finally, my thanks to Pete Stuart, whose question gave me the excuse to
leaven my otherwise recently work dominated life w/ this somewhat more
cheerful hunt. I’m forever indebted to our Joiner From ‘Bama, & hope he
finds something interesting & useful in these posts.
Pete, you asked another seemingly innocent question in a different
thread: whether the sonnet form was ever popular in Ireland. I found
the following, which perhaps makes clear just how unsuccessful, in
general, this particular verse form has been in that country’s literary
history:
Sonnets from Ireland
http://www.sonnets.org/ireland.htm
The most that can be said is right on the page: “Most of the sonnets
here are from little known 19th century poets…” Their obscurity is for
the better part deserved, IMHO, if this is a representative sample of
their works.
respectfully submitted,
|K.E. Dennis den...@mail.montclair.edu
|My employer is not responsible for my opinions,
|regardless of how sensible they are.
Cúfingal
"K. E. Dennis" wrote:
> Pete Stuart [hi Pete!] started me on this project ...
My sincerest thanks, Karen. I am looking forward to reading these at length.
Thanks in advance for the edification. Of course, you realize I will have
questions?
--
Pete one large sacrifice, coming up Stuart
Spiders in the Jacks
http://personal.bhm.bellsouth.net/bhm/t/a/taocelt/cover.htm
Lilly Langtree
Thank you so much for this amazing stuff! Room for it in SCI FAQ?
K. E. Dennis <den...@mail.montclair.edu> wrote in message
news:38B9D912...@mail.montclair.edu...
> Things have been a trifle hectic out here in the Real World. But I
> promised, more or less, to see what I could do to outline the basics of
> "Irish Poetry 101: The Self-Study Course," & to some degree the research
> I've been doing on that kept me from imploding in the last mo. or so.
(snip)
K. E. Dennis
> "K. E. Dennis" wrote:
>
> > Pete Stuart [hi Pete!] started me on this project ...
>
> My sincerest thanks, Karen.
My thanks to *you*, Pete. It really *did* help me maintain my sanity - & seems
to have brought good luck on the big work project too.
Now, maybe I'll get caught up on my correspondence, my bills, & my laundry [she
says, looking a trifle dubiously @ the prospects].
> Of course, you realize I will have
> questions?
I should bloody well hope so, after all that.
Ask away: I'll do my best to find the answers. [As those near & dear to me
frequently remark, I'm unable to resist almost any excuse to hare off after a
research project.]
This one @ least happened to be especially enticing - & left me w/ a long list
of answers to the question, "so what would you like for _______ [fill in
significant occasion for which tokens of affection are typically proffered]?"
respectfully submitted,
|K. E. "& you thought it was all altruism" Dennis
K. E. Dennis
> [snipped]
>
> I will save it for when I have some quality
> time..... Amazing amount of work ... well done....
>
> Highly impressed. !
4 posts, hundreds of lines in length, & not only does Eddie *not* reply
w/ calls for the bucket or a demand to snip, but actually tells me he's
going to read all that in his precious spare time?
Right, now I can die happy.
respectfully submitted [w/ a dizzy sense of unreality],
|K. E. "totally chuffed" Dennis
Cúfingal
"K. E. Dennis" wrote:
> Cúfingal wrote:
>
> > Of course, you realize I will have
> > questions?
>
> I should bloody well hope so, after all that.
First, where is the aforementioned Part 5?
--
Pete Stuart