"The Given Note": traditional music and modern Irish poetry

"The oldest records indicate that the performance of poetry in Gaelic Ireland was normally accompanied by music, providing a point of continuity with past tradition while bolstering a sense of community in the present. Music would also offer, particularly for poets writing in English from the eighteenth century onwards, a perceived authenticity, a connection with an older tradition perceived as being untarnished by linguistic and cultural division. While providing an innovative analysis of theoretical work in music and literary studies, this book examines how traditional Irish music, including the related song tradition (primarily in Irish), has influenced, and is apparent in, the work of Irish poets. While looking generally at where this influence is evident historically and in contemporary Irish poetry, this work focuses primarily on the work of six poets, three who write in English and three who write primarily in the Irish language: Thomas Kinsella, Seamus Heaney, Ciaran Carson, Gearóid Mac Lochlainn, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill and Cathal Ó Searcaigh." More Info: Review: “It will be admitted that this was a book waiting to be written … We should celebrate the fact that when the book finally was written, Sean Crosson made such a good job of it”- Professor Gerry Smyth, Irish Studies Review

Publisher

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Rights

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Ireland

cbn

Collections

Huston School of Film and Digital Media (Books)