Hellenism and Reconciliation in Ireland from Yeats to Field Day -- Book Review

http://www.corkuniversitypress.com/Hellenism-p/9781782050681.htm

Hellenism and Reconciliation in Ireland from Yeats to Field Day

by 

Nathan Wallace

This book is a genealogy of reconciliation in modern Ireland. As Seamus Deane has written, reconciliation stands at a nexus between politics and aesthetics in Irish writing, and has therefore often been a vehicle of colonial ideology. This book shows that the term often fits into a pattern that the author calls the ‘iconography of reconciliation’.


This iconography began in the 1810s when Samuel Taylor Coleridge synthesized Edmund Burke’s thoughts about Ciceronian conciliatio and Aristotelian ethos with Schlegelian literary organicism. That is, Coleridge identified what Aristotle called ‘ethical music’ with the ‘balanced’ personality of Romantic literary genius itself. Wallace then shows that Matthew Arnold and Edward Dowden adopted this Coleridgean synthesis and used it to make their writings about Shakespeare, Wordsworth and Sophocles (now icons of reconciliation) chime with their writings in favour of the Anglo-Irish Union.


Moving on to the twentieth century, Wallace shows first that Yeats and Joyce contested the Unionist icons and, later, that Conor Cruise O’Brien revived them in his writings about Northern Ireland. Wallace finishes by arguing that Field Day countered O’Brien’s ‘Sophoclean’ reading of the Troubles with their own, more ethically responsive icons of Sophoclean reconciliation between 1980 and 1990.


Nathan Wallace is an Assistant Professor of English, Ohio State University, Marion, Ohio.

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This book review appeared in Stylus: Trade, Academic, and Professional Books - Fall 2014, book catalogue. For more information about, and to place an order of "Hellenism and Reconciliation in Ireland from Yeats to Field Day," please check Stylus/Cork University Press website.

James Barry's Murals at the Royal Society of Arts: Envisioning a New Public Art -- Book Review

http://www.corkuniversitypress.com/James-Barry-p/9781782051084.htm

James Barry's Murals at the Royal Society of Arts: Envisioning a New Public Art

by 

William L Pressly 

Between 1777 and 1784, the Irish artist James Barry (1741-1806) executed six murals for the Great Room of the [Royal] Society of Arts in London. Although his works form the most impressive series of history paintings in Great Britain, they remain one of the British art world’s best kept secrets, having attracted little attention from critics or the general public.


James Barry’s Murals at the Royal Society of Arts is the first to offer an in-depth analysis of these remarkable paintings and the first to demonstrate that the artist was pioneering a new approach to public art in terms of the novelty of the patronage and the highly personal nature of his content.


Barry insisted on, and received, complete control over his subject matter, the first time in the history of Western art that the patron of a large, impressive interior agreed to such a demand. The artist required autonomy in order to present his personal vision, which encompasses a rich and complex surface narrative as well as a hidden meaning that has gone unperceived for 230 years. The artist disguised his deeper message due to its inflammatory nature. Were his meaning readily apparent, the Society would have thrown out him and his murals.


Ultimately, as this book seeks to show, the artist intended his paintings to engage the public in a dialogue that would utterly transform British society in terms of its culture, politics, and religion. In making this case, the book brings this neglected series into the mainstream of discussions of British art of the Romantic period, revealing the intellectual profundity invested in the genre of history painting and re-evaluating the role Christianity played in Enlightenment thought.


William L Pressly is Emeritus Professor of Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century European Art at the University of Maryland. He is the author of James Barry: The Life and Art of James Barry (Yale University Press, 1981) and James Barry: the Artist as Hero (Tate Gallery, 1983).

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This book review appeared in Stylus: Trade, Academic, and Professional Books - Fall 2014, book catalogue. For more information about, and to place an order of "James Barry's Murals at the Royal Society of Arts: Envisioning a New Public Art," please check Stylus/Cork University Press website.

Great Deeds in Ireland: Richard Stanihurst’s De Rebus in Hibernia Gestis -- Book Review

http://www.corkuniversitypress.com/Great-Deeds-p/9781909005723.htm 

Great Deeds in Ireland: Richard Stanihurst’s De Rebus in Hibernia Gestis

by 

Hiram Morgan and John Barry 

 
Great Deeds in Ireland is the first full translation of the controversial Latin history of Ireland by the famous Dublin intellectual, Richard Stanihurst. Written after he fled Elizabethan London for the Netherlands, De Rebus in Hibernia Gestis was published in 1584 by Christopher Plantin, the greatest printer of the age.

In facing Latin and English texts, Great Deeds in Ireland provides a contemporary account of Ireland’s geography and people and what the author considered to be the greatest event in Irish history – the Anglo-Norman conquest. Relying on the work of Giraldus Cambrensis, Stanihurst celebrated the origins of the English colony in Ireland whilst simultaneously allegorizing the dilemma facing his own community from a new wave of Protestant English conquerors.

The Anglo-Irishman’s attempt to introduce Ireland to Europe’s Renaissance elite in a literary tour-de-force went awry after many Gaelic Irish, also exiled on the continent, objected to the book’s satirical portrayal of Ireland’s clergy and its representation of the country’s customs, history and learned classes. The book was burned on the orders of the Inquisition in Portugal, marked prohibido in libraries in Spain and provoked a number of angry responses from readers and other writers over the following eighty years. Because of its centrality to debates about Ireland, Stanihurst’s De Rebus was the first book translation undertaken by the Centre for Neo-Latin Studies established at University College Cork for the study of this hitherto neglected corpus of Irish literature.

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This book review appeared in Stylus: Trade, Academic, and Professional Books - Fall 2014, book catalogue. For more information about, and to place an order of "Great Deeds in Ireland: Richard Stanihurst’s De Rebus in Hibernia Gestis," please check Stylus/Cork University Press website.

The Irish Poet and the Natural World: An Anthology of Verse in English from the Tudors to the Romantics -- Book Review

http://www.corkuniversitypress.com/Irish-poet-p/9781782050643.htm

The Irish Poet and the Natural World: An Anthology of Verse in English from the Tudors to the Romantics

by 

Andrew Carpenter and Lucy Collins

This annotated anthology of poems makes available a rich variety of Irish texts depicting the relationship between humans and the environment between the years 1580 and 1820. More than a hundred poems are printed here, together with an extensive critical introduction, notes on each text, and a full bibliography. All the poets whose work is represented were born in Ireland or are identified as Irish.



As well as re-publishing the work of major poets such as Oliver Goldsmith, Laurence Whyte and William Drummond, this anthology includes many works by little known or anonymous authors. This volume also reflects current scholarship on the relationship between literature and the environment, enriching our understanding of attitudes in pre-Romantic Ireland towards changing landscapes and agricultural practices, towards human responsibility for the non-human world, and towards the relationship between nature and aesthetics. As well as adding considerably to existing knowledge of the printing and reading of poetry in Ireland during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, this anthology also traces the developments in sensibility in Irish poetry during this period, offering new perspectives on the advent of Romanticism in England and on the ways in which this revolutionised the relationship between nature and representation. The anthology fulfils the dual purpose of making a significant contribution to the study of literature and the environment, and of expanding our understanding of Irish writing during the period.



Andrew Carpenter Emeritus Professor of English, University College Dublin, General Editor, The Art and Architecture of Ireland, Royal Irish Academy/ Yale University Press.

Lucy Collins is a Lecturer in English Literature, University College Dublin.


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This book review appeared in Stylus: Trade, Academic, and Professional Books - Fall 2014, book catalogue. For more information about, and to place an order of "The Irish Poet and the Natural World: An Anthology of Verse in English from the Tudors to the Romantics,” please check Stylus/Cork University Press website.

Chair’s Corner: Notes from the CCÉ Ottawa Chair, May 2015

The Chair attended the CCÉ North American Province convention in Parsippany, NJ in April.

Highlights of the Provincial meeting:

• Sarah Johnson (MO) new Irish Language Officer for the Province
• On-line version of Treoir will be available in two years
• Canada has to become a province first, before it can make proposal for funding
• Meitheal money is available for a wide range of community development activities
• Glór nan Gael also another very good source of funding
• Strongly encouraged by out-going president of CCÉ, Vincent Jordan,  to make the case, produce a business proposal requesting that Canada form its own province
• There is a recognition that Canada has a different history and different connection to Ireland that the US
• Ireland would support a request from Canada to form its province
• Ireland cannot commit money until we make the first move and provide them with a business case for why we need to be our own province 
• The Canadian delegation asked that part of its start-up funding,  Canada should request and be given a % of the ‘investment’ that Canada has already made to the North American Province over the last 30 or so years. 

 Respectfully submitted, Cathaoirleach

Chair’s Corner: Notes from the CCÉ Ottawa Chair, April 2015

Congratulations to all the members that collaborated to make the St. Patrick’s Day March Dinner and Céilí a success. The meal was, according to reports, delicious. The whole evening went off very well. The Blakeys ended up enjoying being on the dance floor, close to the dancers. It was a long day for everyone. Thank you to all who came out to help with the set up and those were able to stay for the ‘take down.’ Bravo everyone!!!


The Chair represented CCÉ Ottawa at the induction of Eithne Dunbar into the Brockville Performing Arts Hall of Fame, on Thursday, March 26th . As many of you know, Eithne has been an energetic promoter of Irish music, language and culture in the region, initiating the Irish Cultural Society in 1996. That organization hosts ceilis, concerts and other cultural events. She has come to teach Irish for us during our Lá Gaeilge events run with Caint ‘is Comhrá. Eithne has made 2 CDs of songs in the Irish language, the only singer outside of Ireland to have done so. Profits from Eithne's CD's go to the Canadian Gaeltacht, devoted to the teaching and preservation of the Irish language and culture outside of Ireland. Eithne was featured recently at one of our ceilis, where she sang and sold some of her CDs.


The Chair also taught Irish classes at the Irish language weekend in Kingston, April 10-12. I also helped call the Saturday evening ceili by calling all the ceili dances. Stephen called the 2 sets dances. I also taught with Julie a sean nós workshop on the Sunday.


We prepared a page of memories for the family of Dorine Best. She had been involved for years in the running of the Irish language weekends in Arnprior, most recently as a member of Caint ‘is Comhrá. She also attended out Irish language classes and ceilis at Blessed Sacrament. Dorine died of cancer. A celebration of her life was held on Saturday, April 11, the same day that many of us were at the Irish language weekend in Kingston.

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/ottawacitizen/obituary.aspx?pid=174489177

  

Respectfully submitted, Cathaoirleach

Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann 2015 Spring Tulip Ball

The Ottawa Branch of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, once again have the pleaseure to invite you to attend the  

2015 Spring Tulip Ball

Unfortunately the event had to be cancelled.

The Spring Tulip Ball, besides being a fundraiser for CCÉ Youth, is a terrific opportunity for young people and formerly young people to get together, dress up (attire is semiformal to formal) and celebrate the arrival of Spring, tulips and just being alive. 

The beautiful residence of the Irish Ambassador to Canada is a perfect setting for this elegant and enjoyable evening, and we appreciate his making it available. 

 

Soft drinks and water will be available at the bar. Finger foods will also be available.

The award-winning Ottawa Comhaltas Band will provide the music and there will be dancing for those that are interested.

Come and join us for a good Craic, Ceol & Damhsa!