Tongue of water, teeth of stones : Northern Irish poetry and social violence / Jonathan Hufstader.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hufstader, Jonathan, 1939-

Series:

Irish literature, history, and culture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English poetry--Northern Ireland--History and criticism.

English poetry.

Literature and society--Northern Ireland--History--20th century.

Literature and society.

English poetry--Irish authors--History and criticism.

English poetry--Irish authors.

History.

Northern Ireland--In literature.

Northern Ireland.

Social problems in literature.

Violence in literature.

Physical Description:

xi, 324 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Lexington : University Press of Kentucky, [1999]

Summary:

In a 1984 lecture on poetry and political violence, Seamus Heaney remarked that "the idea of poetry was itself that higher ideal to which the poets had unconsciously turned in order to survive the demeaning conditions." Jonathan Hufstader examines the work of Heaney and his contemporaries to discover how poems, combining conscious technique with unconscious impulse, work as aesthetic forms and as strategies for emotional survival.

In his powerful study, Tongue of Water, Teeth of Stones, Hufstader shows how a number of contemporary Northern Irish poets--Seamus Heaney, Derek Mahon, Michael Longley, Paul Muldoon, Tom Paulin, Ciaran Carson and Medbh McGuckian--explore the resources of language and poetic form in their various responses to cultural conflict and political violence.

Focusing on both style and social contexts, Hufstader explores the tension between solidarity and art, between the poet's need to belong and to rebel. He believes that an understanding of the power of lyric points towards an understanding of the source of social violence, and of its cessation. Hufstader provides a fresh account of the relationship between lyric poetry and political violence in Northern Ireland.

Contents:

2 Seamus Heaney 21

3 Michael Longley 87

4 Derek Mahon 111

5 Paul Muldoon 139

6 Tom Paulin 189

7 Ciaran Carson 219

8 Medbh McGuckian 261.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [309]-317) and index.

ISBN:

081312106X

OCLC:

40683621