Irish Literary Tradition

with Maxim Fomin

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Week 4:

Early Irish native literary tradition:

Frameworks and methods of study

Other genres of early Irish literature contain tales (Old Irish scela) that may be grouped under the headings of aideda ‘deaths’, comperta ‘begettings’, fleda ‘feasts’, togala ‘destructions’, tochmarca ‘elopements’, immrama ‘sea-voyages’, echtra ‘Otherworld visits’. In the course of our lectures, we will look at some outstanding specimens of this variety of literary forms and productions, and will try to look at them from different methodological/critical points of view.

Various methodological approaches can be encountered in:

J. F. Nagy. Conversing with angels and ancients : literary myths of medieval Ireland. Dublin, 1997, pp. 7-11.

K. McCone. ‘Literary genre and narrative technique’, in: Pagan past and Christian present in Early Irish Literature, Maynooth, 1990, pp. 29-49.

J. M. Wooding, ‘Introduction’, in: The Otherworld Voyage in Early Irish Literature. An Anthology of Criticism, ed. J.M. Wooding, Dublin, 2000, pp. xi-xix.

Select a Week:

Week 1 Introduction go
Week 2Encounters of saints with heroes go
Week 3The Ulster cycle of tales go
Week 4Early Irish native literary tradition go
Week 5Middle Irish satirical wiritngs go
Week 6Middle Irish romances & Fenian lays go
Week 7The penetration of saga material into the folklore tradition go
Week 8Irish historical and pseudo-historical writings go
Week 9The Irish lords on the continent go
Week 10The decline of the bardic tradition go
Week 11Late nineteenth century Irish literary revival go
Week 12Twentieth century Irish literature go