In a series of illuminating close readings, Fiona Stafford explores the use of earlier poems as starting points for new work. Each chapter discusses a Scottish, English, or Irish poem that begins with a line from one of the other national literatures of the British Isles, considering whether issues of originality, influence, and inheritance are essentially political as well as literary.
Hardcover
PRODUCT INFORMATION
Summary
In a series of illuminating close readings, Fiona Stafford explores the use of earlier poems as starting points for new work. Each chapter discusses a Scottish, English, or Irish poem that begins with a line from one of the other national literatures of the British Isles, considering whether issues of originality, influence, and inheritance are essentially political as well as literary.
Description
Why should a poem begin with a line from another poem? Is an eighteenth-century epigraph working in the same way as a post-modern quotation? And how are the dynamics of the new text and the source affected by issues of nationhood, language, history, and cultural tradition? Are literary ideas of originality and imitation, allusion and influence inherently political if the poems emerge from different sides of a border or of a colonialrelationship?Taking as a framework the history of relations between Ireland, England, and Scotland since the 1707 Union, the book explores such questions through a series of close readings. Textual encounterssingled out for detailed discussion include Burns's use of Shakespeare, Coleridge's reference to 'Sir Patrick Spens', James Clarence Mangan's adaptation of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ciaran Carson's quotation from John Keats, Seamus Heaney's meditation on Henry Vaughan, and the evolution of 'The Homes of England' from Felicia Hemans to Noel Coward.
Critic Reviews
“This is a work of mature scholarship; its references inform, delight and open new avenues of connectedness at every turn. It is also unpretentiously, generously written: the speaking voice and personal enthusiasms of the best kind of teacher hold interest across an impressively broad span of poetic analysis ... It is as persuasive an advocacy of the pleasure of poetry as I have read in years.”
... admirable clarity of style ... The range of reference here enables insights that contemporary Irish poetry critics may sometimes miss.'Years Work in English StudiesFor anyone interested in poetic allusion ... the book is essential reding. ... a challenging, acute and sometimes beautifully written account of that texture of historical, cultural, and textual relations that makes literary history'Neil Corcoran Notes and Queries`The extraordinary verbal memory of poets is the underlying theme of the book, and Stafford's tracing of interconnections ... is usually deftly sensitive and intelligent, and sometimes brilliant, her patiently devoted explication placed at the service of persuasive critical ruminations'Neil Corcoran, Notes and Queries
About the Author
Fiona Stafford is a reader in English at the University of Oxford and a Fellow and Tutor in English at Somerville College, Oxford.
Why should a poem begin with a line from another poem? Is an eighteenth-century epigraph working in the same way as a post-modern quotation? And how are the dynamics of the new text and the source affected by issues of nationhood, language, history, and cultural tradition? Are literary ideas of originality and imitation, allusion and influence inherently political if the poems emerge from different sides of a border or of a colonial relationship?Taking as a framework the history of relations between Ireland, England, and Scotland since the 1707 Union, the book explores such questions through a series of close readings. Textual encounters singled out for detailed discussion include Burns's use of Shakespeare, Coleridge's reference to 'Sir Patrick Spens', James Clarence Mangan's adaptation of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ciaran Carson's quotation from John Keats, Seamus Heaney's meditation on Henry Vaughan, and the evolution of 'The Homes of England' from Felicia Hemans to Noel Coward.
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