Volume 30, Number 8 · May 12, 1983
Mulligan Stew
By Robert M. Adams
A Colder Eye: The Modern Irish Writers
by Hugh Kenner
Knopf, 287 pp., $16.95
Hugh Kenner, who has written two books on Joyce, two on Beckett, two on Pound, and one on Eliot, has now written one on the modern Irish writers, by whom he means primarily Yeats, Joyce, and Synge. Two of these figures have been dead for more than forty years, one for nearly seventy-five; but there's no need to be chronological about the word 'modern.' By one civilized and defensible calculation, everything written since 1750 is 'modern,' and it's no paradox to propound that we've hardly begun to catch up with the modernity of William Blake. So Yeats, Joyce, and Synge can perfectly well be modern Irish writers; it's less clear that they are the modern writers, since there were after all a number of others. Kenner's account of, or neglect of, these others involves him in a good deal of cross-stitching and hopscotching.
Review, 1953 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |