History and its Retrieval in Contemporary Northern Irish Poetry: Paulin, Montague and Others

Craig, Patricia

doi:10.1007/978-1-349-80425-2_6

Cited by 2 publications

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“…We remember oatmeal and mutton, Harpsong, a fern table for Wiping your hands on, A candle of reeds and butter, The distaste of the rheumatic chronicler, A barbarous tongue, and herds like cloud-shadow Roaming the wet hills When the hills were young, Whiskery pikemen and their spiky dogs Preserved in woodcuts and card-catalogues (Mahon, 1979, p. 45). As Patricia Craig (1992) suggests, this poem "bring[s] the past, with its strangeness, into the creative juxtaposition with the everyday" (p. 116). The poet does not portray a sinister view of the past; rather, he seems to draw a picture of innocence.…”

Section: Mahon's Barbarians: Protestant Paranoia and The Catholic Scamentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Barbarlari Beklerken’: Derek Mahon’in ‘Poem Beginning With a Line by Cavafy’ Adli Şi̇i̇ri̇nde Öteki̇ İmgesi̇

Hakkıoğlu

2017

HUMANITAS - Uluslararası Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi

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In 'Waiting for the Barbarians', the Alexandrian poet Constantine Cavafy explains how the ruling class maintains its power within the context of meanings attributed to the Other, and tells how deeply the extinction of the Other shakes the current socio-political system. As an archetype for a great number of literary studies, this poem also inspires the Northern Irish poet Derek Mahon's 'Poem Beginning with a Line by Cavafy'. In this poem, Mahon examines the dilemma of the civilised-self by questioning the reigning Protestant obsession with Catholic presence. Grounded chiefly on the traces of 'Waiting for the Barbarians' in 'Poem Beginning with a Line by Cavafy', this paper tells how the Protestants in Northern Ireland used Catholic presence politically to secure their sovereignty until the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, and how they transformed this perception of historical threat into a paranoia. The barbarians in both poems are practical scapegoats for the reigning order. Yet, unlike those Cavafy describes, Mahon's barbarians live not beyond the borders, but together with the civilised-self, aping its lifestyle. The civilised-self perceives even this desire for levelling as a threat and gradually transforms into what it is frightened of, by positioning itself negatively against the Other. If Cavafy's barbarians are a remedy for the decaying civilisation, Mahon's barbarians are agents of the Protestant paranoia as well as an outcome of the culturally decayed society.

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Section: Mahon's Barbarians: Protestant Paranoia and The Catholic Scamentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Barbarlari Beklerken’: Derek Mahon’in ‘Poem Beginning With a Line by Cavafy’ Adli Şi̇i̇ri̇nde Öteki̇ İmgesi̇

Hakkıoğlu

2017

HUMANITAS - Uluslararası Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi

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The Use of Ulster Speech by Michael Longley and Tom Paulin

Kruczkowska

2011

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The article examines the application and exploration of Ulster dialects in the work of two poets of Northern Irish Protestant background, Tom Paulin and Michael Longley. It depicts Paulin's attitude to the past and the present of their community of origin, the former positive and the latter negative, which is responsible for the ambiguities in his use of and his comments on the local speech. Both poets employ the vernacular to refer to their immediate context, i.e. the conflict in Ulster, and in this respect linguistic difference comes to be associated with violence. Yet another vital element of their exploration of the dialect is its link to their origins, home and the intimacy it evokes, which offers a contrary perspective on the issue of languages and makes their approach equivocal. This context in Paulin's poetry is further enriched with allusions to or open discussion of the United Irishmen ideal and the international Protestant experience, and with his reworking of ancient Greek myth and tragedy, while in Longley's poetry it is set in the framework of "translations" from Homer which, strangely enough, transport the reader to contemporary Ireland. While Longley in his comments (interviews and autobiographical writings) relates the dialect to his personal experience, Paulin (in his essays and in interviews) seems to situate it in a vaster network of social and political concepts that he has developed in connection with language, which in Ireland has never seemed a neutral phenomenon detached from historical and political implications. Longley's use of local speech is seldom discussed by critics; Paulin's, on the contrary, has stirred diverse reactions and controversies. The article investigates some of these critical views chiefly concerned with the alleged artificiality of his use of local words and with his politicizing the dialects. Performing the analysis of his poems and essays, the article argues for Paulin's "consistency in inconsistency," i.e. the fact that his application of dialectal words reflects his love-hate attitude to his community of origin, and that in the clash of two realities, of the conflict and of home, his stance and literary practice is not far from Longley's, which has been regarded as quite neutral as one can infer from the lack of critical controversy about it. The voices of the two poets and their use of local speech provide a crucial insight into the Northern Irish reality with all its intricacy and paradox.

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History and its Retrieval in Contemporary Northern Irish Poetry: Paulin, Montague and Others

Cited by 2 publications

References 0 publications

‘Barbarlari Beklerken’: Derek Mahon’in ‘Poem Beginning With a Line by Cavafy’ Adli Şi̇i̇ri̇nde Öteki̇ İmgesi̇

‘Barbarlari Beklerken’: Derek Mahon’in ‘Poem Beginning With a Line by Cavafy’ Adli Şi̇i̇ri̇nde Öteki̇ İmgesi̇

The Use of Ulster Speech by Michael Longley and Tom Paulin

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