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Transtextual Conceptualizations of Northern Ireland v Paul Muldoon vs

RUBEN MOI

ndependence movements in many corners of the world looked to William Butler Yeats and Michael Collins for artistic inspiration and I guerrilla tactics during the first part of the twentieth century. Al- though Yeats still holds a firm position in contemporary poetics and the critical discourses of emancipation, his representations of Northern/Ire- land have been complemented by the paroxysm of poetic activity of ex- ceptional quality and variety that coincided with the recurrence of the historical conflict in Northern Ireland in the late 1960s.1 During the same period, the emergence of Foucault, Lyotard and Derrida provided the poe- tics and ancient hostilities of Northern/Ireland with new modes of intel- lectual analyses. Today Seamus Heaney, the poet, playwright, critic, editor, Ralph Waldo Emerson Poet in Residence at Harvard, Oxford Pro- fessor of Poetry 1989–94, and 1995 Nobel Laureate, holds the most presti- gious position on the global stage of poetry. His artistic élan and pre-

1 For a discussion of Yeats’ poetic in a postcolonial context, see Terry Eagle- ton, Fredric Jameson, Edward Said & Seamus Deane, Nationalism, Colonialism, Literature (Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1990). For recent monographs on Yeats, see Terence Brown, The Life of W.B. Yeats (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), and the two comprehensive and critically acclaimed volumes of Roy Foster, W.B. Yeats: A Life (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1997, 2003). 218 RUBEN MOI v eminent status tend to precondition the imaginative presentation of Nor- thern Ireland in contemporary poetry, and its concomitant evaluations.2 Already in 1982, Morrison and Motion, in their anthology of contem- porary poetry (which also includes Heaney’s sixteen-year-younger Nor- thern-Irish colleague Paul Muldoon), elevate Heaney as the “most impor- tant new poet of the last fifteen years,” articulate deficiently “the spirit of ,” and state that “the new spirit in British poetry began to make itself felt in Northern Ireland during the late 1960s and early 70s.”3 Although their spirit of postmodernism fits Muldoon better than Heaney, the two English poet–critics assign Heaney the most prominent position in their selection of contemporary poets, which includes five other poets from Northern Ireland: Muldoon, , , Tom Paulin and Maedbh McGuckian. The conceptualizations of Northern Ire- land in the poetics of these seven poets reveal significant similarities and differences; this article intends to examine the transtextualities between Paul Muldoon and Seamus Heaney. Paul Muldoon, the poet, playwright, children’s writer, librettist, pop lyricist, translator of Gaelic, critic, editor, Princeton Professor of Creative Writing and Oxford Professor of Poetry 1999–2004, recently acclaimed as “the most significant English-language poet born since the Second World War,”4 appears as a distinct alternative to Heaney’s aesthetic and concep- tualizations of Northern Ireland. Heaney published twelve volumes of poetry (not counting his creative translations) between in 1966 and District & Circle in 2006. Within more or less the same time-span, Paul Muldoon published ten volumes between his debut

2 The reception of Heaney’s poetry is, of course, much more nuanced and contested than the dominant positions simplified here. For a selection of varied approaches to the dispute over the politics and aesthetics of his poetry, see Seamus Heaney, ed. Michael Allen (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997). 3 Blake Morrison & Andrew Motion, ed. Penguin Book of Contemporary British Poetry (London: Faber & Faber, 1982): 12, 13, 20. 4 This accolade stems from the Times Literary Supplement, but now appears in most promotions of Muldoon. Quoted in Bill Raglie, “Paul Muldoon’s Latest: A Master Poet Writ(h)es Again,” MacWeekly 85.6, http://www.macalester.edu /weekly/101802/arts3.html (accessed 10 October 2003).