A History of Irish Women's Poetry

This book is a comprehensive survey of the field of Irish women's poetry across all periods by leading scholars.

Ailbhe Darcy (Edited by), David Wheatley (Edited by)

9781108478700, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 1 July 2021

1 pages
23.5 x 16 x 3.2 cm, 0.85 kg

'… highly recommended …' Pauline Harrison, Women's Writing

A History of Irish Women's Poetry is a ground-breaking and comprehensive account of Irish women's poetry from earliest times to the present day. It reads Irish women's poetry through many prisms – mythology, gender, history, the nation – and most importantly, close readings of the poetry itself. It covers major figures, such as Máire Mhac an tSaoi, Eavan Boland, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, as well as neglected figures from the past. Writing in both English and Irish is considered, and close attention paid to the many different contexts in which Irish women's poetry has been produced and received, from the anonymous work of the early medieval period, through the bardic age, the coterie poets of Anglo-Ireland, the nationalist balladeers of Young Ireland, the Irish Literary Revival, and the advent of modernity. As capacious as it is diverse, this book is an essential contribution to scholarship in the field.

Introduction: why foremothers? Ailbhe Darcy and David Wheatley
1. The reception of Irish women poets Anne Fogarty
2. Women in the medieval poetry business Máirín Ní Dhonnchadha
3. Seventeenth century women's poetry in Ireland Danielle Clarke and Sarah McKibben
4. The oral tradition Tríona Ni Shíocháin
5. Archipelagic Ireland: women's anglophone poetry from the eighteenth century Sarah Prescott
6. Irish Romanticism Catherine Jones
7. Mary Tighe in life, myth, and literary vicissitude Stephen Behrendt
8. Masculinity, nationhood and the Irish woman poet, 1860–1922 Lucy Collins
9. The eclipse of Dora Sigerson Matthew Campbell
10. Between revivalist lyric and Irish modernism Sarah Bennett
11. The other 'northern renaissance' Jaclyn Allen
12. Rematriating mid-century modernism: Carla Lanyon Lanyon Moynagh Sullivan
13. Accidental Irishness and the transnational legacy of Lola Ridge Daniel Tobin
14. Crisis and renewal: Irish-language poetry in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries Daniela Theinová
15. The poetry of Máire Mhac an tSaoi and the indivisibility of love Patricia Coughlan
16. Voices from limbo: Biddy Jenkinson David Wheatley
17. Bilingual poetry Kenneth Keating
18. Catholicism in modern Irish women's poetry Catriona Clutterbuck
19. 1970s–80s feminism Kit Fryatt
20. The art of fabrication: reading Eiléan Ni Chuilleanáin Maria Johnston
21. Eavan Boland, history and silence Guinn Batten
22. Paula Meehan and the public poem Kathryn Kirkpatrick
23. Formalism and contemporary women's poetry Tara McEvoy
24. Susan Howe, Maggie O'Sullivan, Catherine Walsh Nerys Williams
25. Irish women's poetry beyond the now Anne Mulhall.

Subject Areas: British & Irish history [HBJD1], Literary reference works [DSR], Literary studies: poetry & poets [DSC], Literary studies: general [DSB], Poetry anthologies [various poets DCQ]