Postcolonial overtures : the politics of sound in contemporary Northern Irish poetry / Julia C. Obert.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Obert, Julia C., author.

Series:

Irish Studies

Postcolonial Overtures

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

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

English poetry.

English poetry--20th century--History and criticism.

Sound in literature.

Northern Ireland--In literature.

Northern Ireland.

Carson, Ciaran, 1948---Criticism and interpretation.

Carson, Ciaran.

Mahon, Derek, 1941---Criticism and interpretation.

Mahon, Derek.

Muldoon, Paul--Criticism and interpretation.

Muldoon, Paul.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (252 p.)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Syracuse, New York : Syracuse University Press, 2015.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Postcolonial Overtures explores the importance of sound in contemporary Northern Irish writing, focusing on the work of three canonical poets: Ciaran Carson, Derek Mahon, and Paul Muldoon. Obert argues that these poets respond to what Edward Said calls "geographical violence"-to the stratification of the North's visual spaces; to the sectarian symbols splashed across Belfast and beyond-by turning from the eye to the ear, tentatively remapping place in acoustic space. Carson, for instance, casts Troubles-era Belfast as a "demolition city, " its landmarks "swallowed in the maw of time and trouble, " and tries to compensate for this inhospitality by reimagining landscape as soundscape, an immersive auditory field. This strategy suggests sound's political and affective potential: music, accent, and even comfortingly familiar white noise can help subjects, otherwise unmoored, feel at home. Drawing on a diverse range of fields, Obert devotes two chapters to the examination of each poet's work, allowing room for both in-depth formalist readings and contextual and theoretical understandings of the poems and their reverberating effects.

Contents:

Of homing refrains

Ciaran Carson: sounding the city

Ciaran Carson: from song to stutter

Derek Mahon: bearing earwitness

Derek Mahon: a "politics of frequency"

Paul Muldoon: becoming opera

Paul Muldoon: poetic sonography

Coda: "the new north".

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780815653493

0815653492

OCLC:

928978171