The Japanese Effect in Contemporary Irish Poetry

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xvi

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Irene De Angelis

   Pages 1-13

3. Petals on Sandymount Strand

   • Seamus Heaney

   Pages 14-38

4. Snow Was General All Over Japan

   • Derek Mahon

   Pages 39-64

5. Self-contained Images and the Invisible Cities of Tokyo

   • Ciaran Carson

   Pages 65-80

6. The Gentle Art of Disappearing

   • Gabriel Rosenstock, Michael Hartnett, Paul Muldoon

   Pages 81-113

7. Tu n’as Rien Vu à Hiroshima

   • Thomas Kinsella, Eugene Watters, Anthony Glavin

   Pages 114-137

8. Between East and West

   • Andrew Fitzsimons, Sinéad Morrissey, Joseph Woods

   Pages 138-158

9. Back Matter

   Pages 159-193

   PDF

The Japanese Effect in Contemporary Irish Poetry provides a stimulating, original and lively analysis of the Irish-Japanese literary connection from the early 1960s to 2007. While for some this may partly remain Oscar Wilde's 'mode of style', this book will show that there is more of Japan in the work of contemporary Irish poets than 'a tinkling of china/ and tea into china.' Drawing on unpublished new sources, Irene De Angelis includes poets from a broad range of cultural backgrounds with richly varied styles: Seamus Heaney, Derek Mahon, Ciaran Carson and Paul Muldoon, together with younger poets such as Sinéad Morrissey and Joseph Woods. Including close readings of selected poems, this is an indispensable companion for all those interested in the broader historical and cultural research on the effect of oriental literature in modernist and postmodernist Irish poetry.

• English literature
• poetry
• William Butler Yeats
• British and Irish Literature

"This is a truly enlightening critical study, which puts flesh on an affiliation between islands at the opposite ends of the immense Eurasian landmass, and the commerce between their poetic traditions... it is various, and engaging, and culturally sophisticated, and scholarship which operates at the level of the word as well as at the level of culture." Australasian Journal of Irish Studies

"...commendable in its attention to the fertility of the poetic ground created by Japan's influence on Ireland, and authoritative in its knowledge of both poetic cultures." Iain Twiddy, Journal of Irish Studies

"Probably, in the West we are not thoroughly aware of the fact that Japanese aesthetics has influenced European and North American taste to a significant degree. This is why De Angelis' book is important. It testifies to the weight that Japanese culture has had in the shaping of much Western poetry... De Angelis' research is extremely well accomplished. She deals with a wide and varied selection of Irish poets, whose work she analyses with a well versed knowledge in Japanese poetic structures and conventions... De Angelis' book is filled with beauty and is a pleasure to read. She guides the reader through the discovery of an aspect of Irish poetry that is probably not so well known. Most importantly she manages to highlight the impact that Japanese poetry has had on contemporary Western poetry at large. Her approach is crisp and fresh like the poetry she investigates. Moreover, through her description of the 'Japanese effect', we are introduced to the specificities of some contemporary Irish poetry, i.e. its political engagement, which is not limited to Irish troubles, and its preoccupation with aesthetics, balance and reticence." Arianna Gremigni, Studi irlandesi. A Journal of Irish Studies

Irene De Angelis is Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Torino, Italy. With Joseph Woods she is co-editor of Our Shared Japan: An Anthology of Contemporary Irish Poetry (2007), and has published numerous articles on contemporary Irish poetry.

Policies and ethics