Volume 29, Number 8 · May 13, 1982
Playing to Empty Pockets
By Patricia Craig
An Duanaire: An Irish Anthology 1600-1900: Poems of the Dispossessed
presented by Seán Ó Tuama, with verse translations by Thomas Kinsella
University of Pennsylvania Press, 382 pp., $12.95 (paper)
Dispossession, desolation, and disaffection overtook the 'native Irish' after their defeat by the English at Kinsale (1601), and literature in Gaelic went underground, as its audience shifted gradually from one end of the social scale to the other. The old noble Irish families, who were exiled or down-graded themselves, were no longer able to act as patrons of the arts as they had done previously. Bardic schools, with their fourteen-year apprenticeships, were soon disestablished; and verse composition was freed—to its great benefit, in fact—from the strict metrical rules which had governed it.
Review, 3465 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. |