Downloaded 4.0 License

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Downloaded 4.0 License Chapter 4 Quoof Quoof presents in the very unintelligibility of its title the importance of lan- guage in Muldoon’s fourth volume of poetry. In an entirely unprecedented constellation of letters, this queer word flaunts its own alterities and sugges- tiveness. It is a quip that traces its own coming into being back to the originary, the decentered and the unidentifiable, to an endless referral of new traces from which new meanings may emerge. It presents adlinguisticism. Absence, play and emptiness appear part and parcel of its very quiddity. Due to, more than despite of, its denial of definitions and a logical or linear heritage, this semiotic specimen takes on aural and semantic currency. The language of Quoof, which differs considerably from ordinary usage, critical expectations and public vocabulary, can be said to extend to larger discourses, too. Contem- porary poetics, Heaney’s in particular but also Kinsella’s, Montague’s and Ma- hon’s, remains a target for parts of Muldoon’s abrasive and dialogic poetics. Poetic form, especially the sonnet, becomes a space to be undermined from within and overwritten from without – a form Muldoon literally executes; he keeps it alive by risking its extinction. His narrative vein, which runs from his early verses to the Byronic whimsicalities of Why Brownlee Left, increasingly undermines the established standards of narratology. In relation to the con- current chaos of its immediate contexts, for example the 1981 Hunger Strike in the Maze, the volume’s illinguisticity, narratricidal structures and flirtations with the incredible help to engender its distinctively skewed semiosis. Not sur- prisingly, the baffling and bewildering dimensions of Quoof did not pass un- noticed among critics. In the review where Derek Mahon questions the language of Quoof – ‘Quaat?’ – he proceeds to praise ‘Muldoon’s exchanges of opacity for opacity’ in verses he deems ‘peculiarly resistant to paraphrase’ and ‘opaque to the point of secretiveness.’1 Mahon is not alone in his complimentary puzzlement. The re- viewing of Quoof certainly suggests a type of poetic language which engenders heterogeneity and signifies by other means, and which puzzles and provokes. Edna Longley admits to the poet’s countering of the language of commonali- ties: ‘Paul Muldoon’s poetry carries its own antibodies against literal-minded critics.’2 ‘Her title, ‘Uncovering the Deadly Depths,’ illuminates the seriousness 1 Derek Mahon, ‘Quaat?,’ New Statesman (11 November 1983), 27–28. 2 Edna Longley, ‘Uncovering the Deadly Depths,’ Fortnight, no. 200 (1983), 31. © RUBEN MOI, ���� | doi:10.1163/9789004355118_006 Ruben Moi - 9789004355118 This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC-BY-NCDownloaded 4.0 License. from Brill.com10/01/2021 12:58:22AM via free access <UN> Quoof 103 of Muldoon’s narrathanatographies in particular, but also the adlinguistic and alterrative aspects of his poetry. Other writers also testify to the unintelligible character of his work. John Banville concedes: ‘Muldoon’s poetry is hard to grasp,’ seeing a connection with beastliness and apocalypse in Yeats in a review headed ‘Slouching toward Bethlehem.’3 ‘The argot of Quoof is foppish and odd,’ John Kerrigan writes in ‘The New Narrative.’4 He understands Muldoon’s alter- ratives far better. The unprecedented nature of Muldoon’s poetic language also energises much of Aiden Mathews’ review, ‘Coiner of Words,’ which praises the volume for ‘the rich instability of words’ and ‘its language in heat.’5 Peter Porter, in ‘Redskins in Belfast,’ describes the poems as ‘compressed and cryptic’ but confesses: ‘In many of these, one wonders what is going on.’6 Geoffrey Stokes assesses in ‘Bloody Beautiful’ the language as ‘multilayered, kaleidoscopic,’ ‘full of small, precise, surprises’ and ‘verbal felicities,’ and he argues: ‘Muldoon is shifting, allusive, and sometimes downright baffling, but he is never insistent.’7 With a headline capturing the volume’s incongruent tonalities of levity and brutality, Martin Dodsworth finds in ‘Lightly on the Raw’ that the poems in this ‘awkward but absorbing book’ ‘induce a nagging blankness by refusing to say what they’re up to,’ and that ‘this is an art that disdains “art”: not everyone will like it.’8 Dillon Johnston finds the volume, apart from some of Kinsella’s later volumes, the only one ‘we could honestly label avant garde,’ finding the lan- guage ‘to be droll or coy but always carefully and delicately constructed,’ and indicating a preference for the ‘Protean experiences of his poems, often un- pleasant’ when compared ‘to the tired shibboleths and false truths they replace.’9 Johnston’s latter assessment concurs with Muldoon’s own comment on the transmogrifying mêlée of the last long poem: ‘In “The More a Man Has the More a Man Wants” I hoped to purge myself of the very public vocabulary it employs, the kennings of the hourly news bulletin.’10 Quoof, in its title-word, certainly succeeds in this purgation, as do so many of the other estranging lin- guistic strategies in the volume that challenge its reviewers and critics. Basi- cally all critics notice the shock and spectrality of Muldoon’s language in Quoof, 3 John Banville, ‘Slouching toward Bethlehem,’ New York Review of Books, 30 May 1991, 38. 4 John Kerrigan, ‘The New Narrative,’ London Review of Books, 16–29 February 1984, 23. 5 Aiden Mathews, ‘Coiner of Words,’ The Irish Times, 24 March 1992, 13. 6 Peter Porter, ‘Redskins in Belfast,’ The Observer Review of Books, 16 October 1983, 33. 7 Geoffrey Stokes, ‘Bloody Beautiful,’ The Village Voice Literary Supplement, March 1984, 15. 8 Martin Dodsworth, ‘Lightly on the Raw,’ The Guardian, 17 November 1983, 17. 9 Dillon Johnston, Irish Poetry after Joyce (New York: Syracuse University Press, 1997), 263–272. 10 Paul Muldoon, ‘Paul Muldoon Writes,’ The Poetry Book Society Bulletin, no. 118 (1983), 1–2. Ruben Moi - 9789004355118 Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 12:58:22AM via free access <UN> 104 Chapter 4 but very few of them, if any, explore the hermeneutic possibilities of his adlin- guisticism and alterratives. Despite the piecemeal insights of their evaluations, these critics testify unanimously to a perplexity in the language of Quoof that resists the ordinary apparatus of analytical approaches. A paradigmatic shift in critical thinking can be detected here. The catalogue of professed confusion from diverse re- viewers reveals that the experimental and evasive qualities of the texts in this volume defy comprehension by means of conventional critical hermeneutics. One may surmise that one reason for the critical resistence of the poems to readymade interpretations stems from the ways in which Quoof explodes Ro- manticist concepts of love, language and pastoralism. Another factor in this hermeneutic bafflement, one may suggest, is how Quoof is situated at the nex- us of modernist and postmodernist transition and transformation. If ‘genuine poetry communicates before it is understood,’ as Eliot claims, the unintelligi- bility of ‘quoof’ takes on added significance.11 A third and very likely factor lies in Muldoon’s language, notably its unheimlich lexicon, its formal inspections, its deformation of standard syntax and grammar and its experiments with lan- guistic concepts and philosophy. Its undecidability can cause confusion, curi- osity and contrivance. It can provoke anger, aggression and resignation. Quoof makes manifest a very forceful example of ostranenie. But the word, the poem and the volume are also brimming with other possibilities. Perhaps, ‘quoof’ is not to be read, but rather ‘looked at and listened to,’ as Beckett advised readers to do when approaching Joyce’s ‘Work in Progress,’ which became Finnegans Wake?12 What notes might it sound? Or does Muldoon’s letter cluster assume meaning by alphabetic supplementarity and alliterative association with queen, queer, quaff and quote to hoof, hoop, hoot and huff and the myriad of mutations before, between and beyond these possibilities? Is it an acronym? Does not the single letter, at any rate, assume specific significance in such an alphabetic stumbling block? If ‘quoof,’ in the language of deconstruction and semiotics, acts as an empty signifier awaiting the signified and as a floating signifier in the sea of signifiance, to what extent does it appropriate meaning from, and assign meaning to, the contexts of the volume with its eponymous poem ‘Quoof’? With these far-reaching demands, which stretch the bounda- ries of poetic licence, and which constitute a challenge to literary critics and 11 Frank Kermode, ed. Selected Prose of T.S. Eliot (London: Faber and Faber, 1975), 206. 12 Samuel Beckett, ‘Dante. Bruno. Vico. Joyce.,’ in Finnegans Wake: A Symposium – Exagmi­ nation Round His Incamination of Work in Progress (New York: New Directions, [1929] 1972), 11. Ruben Moi - 9789004355118 Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 12:58:22AM via free access <UN> Quoof 105 even the theoretical discourses of critical analysis, the recursive title is laden with the same poetic freight as ‘Hedgehog’ in New Weather that risks its own existence by its own denial of surrounding pressures, or the exorbitant title bursts upon the critical arena with superabundant semiosis, like a lexical me- teorite, from the outside of the ordinary bounds of language to clash with the linguistic order, to hint at infinite possibility, and to explore the gradations between them. Quoof shines, shifts and slides with alphaphilia and audio­ fetishism, a typical Muldonic lust for letters, and with his sense for sounds that augment the literary status quo and provide an alternative to customary para- digms in critical practice and habitual thinking. Linguistic licence, tricks and spoofs, such as these, render the world, in the words of ‘Snow’ by MacNeice, one of Muldoon’s favourite forefathers, ‘incorri- gibly plural,’ but also, variegated and diffuse in its ways of being and saying.13 Discovery of new words and idiomatic spectrality are part of Muldoon’s verbal constellations and poetic universe.
Recommended publications
  • The Dublin Gate Theatre Archive, 1928 - 1979
    Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections Northwestern University Libraries Dublin Gate Theatre Archive The Dublin Gate Theatre Archive, 1928 - 1979 History: The Dublin Gate Theatre was founded by Hilton Edwards (1903-1982) and Micheál MacLiammóir (1899-1978), two Englishmen who had met touring in Ireland with Anew McMaster's acting company. Edwards was a singer and established Shakespearian actor, and MacLiammóir, actually born Alfred Michael Willmore, had been a noted child actor, then a graphic artist, student of Gaelic, and enthusiast of Celtic culture. Taking their company’s name from Peter Godfrey’s Gate Theatre Studio in London, the young actors' goal was to produce and re-interpret world drama in Dublin, classic and contemporary, providing a new kind of theatre in addition to the established Abbey and its purely Irish plays. Beginning in 1928 in the Peacock Theatre for two seasons, and then in the theatre of the eighteenth century Rotunda Buildings, the two founders, with Edwards as actor, producer and lighting expert, and MacLiammóir as star, costume and scenery designer, along with their supporting board of directors, gave Dublin, and other cities when touring, a long and eclectic list of plays. The Dublin Gate Theatre produced, with their imaginative and innovative style, over 400 different works from Sophocles, Shakespeare, Congreve, Chekhov, Ibsen, O’Neill, Wilde, Shaw, Yeats and many others. They also introduced plays from younger Irish playwrights such as Denis Johnston, Mary Manning, Maura Laverty, Brian Friel, Fr. Desmond Forristal and Micheál MacLiammóir himself. Until his death early in 1978, the year of the Gate’s 50th Anniversary, MacLiammóir wrote, as well as acted and designed for the Gate, plays, revues and three one-man shows, and translated and adapted those of other authors.
    [Show full text]
  • Samuel Beckett (1906- 1989) Was Born in Dublin. He Was One of the Leading Dramatists and Writers of the Twentieth Century. in Hi
    Samuel Beckett (1906- 1989) was born in Dublin. He was one of the leading t dramatists and writers of the twentieth century. In his theatrical images and t prose writings, Beckett achieved a spare beauty and timeless vision of human suffering, shot through with dark comedy and humour. His 1969 Nobel Prize for Literature citation praised him for ‘a body of work that in new forms of fiction and the theatre has transmuted the destitution of modern man into his exaltation’. A deeply shy and sensitive man, he was often kind and generous both to friends and strangers. Although witty and warm with his close friends, he was intensely private and refused to be interviewed or have any part in promoting his books or plays. Yet Beckett’s thin angular countenance, with its deep furrows, cropped grey hair, long beak- like nose and gull-like eyes is one of the iconic faces of the twentieth century. Beckett himself acknowledged the impression his Irish origin left on his imagination. Though he spent most of his life in Paris and wrote in French as well as English, he always held an Irish passport. His language and dialogue have an Irish cadence and syntax. He was influenced by Becke many of his Irish forebears, Jonathan Swift, J.M. Synge, William and Jack Butler Yeats, and particularly by his friend and role model, James Joyce. When a journalist asked Beckett if he was English, he replied, simply, ‘Au contraire’. Family_ Beckett was born on Good Friday, 13th April 1906, in the affluent village of Foxrock, eight miles south of Dublin.
    [Show full text]
  • Irish Studies Around the World – 2020
    Estudios Irlandeses, Issue 16, 2021, pp. 238-283 https://doi.org/10.24162/EI2021-10080 _________________________________________________________________________AEDEI IRISH STUDIES AROUND THE WORLD – 2020 Maureen O’Connor (ed.) Copyright (c) 2021 by the authors. This text may be archived and redistributed both in electronic form and in hard copy, provided that the author and journal are properly cited and no fee is charged for access. Introduction Maureen O’Connor ............................................................................................................... 240 Cultural Memory in Seamus Heaney’s Late Work Joanne Piavanini Charles Armstrong ................................................................................................................ 243 Fine Meshwork: Philip Roth, Edna O’Brien, and Jewish-Irish Literature Dan O’Brien George Bornstein .................................................................................................................. 247 Irish Women Writers at the Turn of the 20th Century: Alternative Histories, New Narratives Edited by Kathryn Laing and Sinéad Mooney Deirdre F. Brady ..................................................................................................................... 250 English Language Poets in University College Cork, 1970-1980 Clíona Ní Ríordáin Lucy Collins ........................................................................................................................ 253 The Theater and Films of Conor McPherson: Conspicuous Communities Eamon
    [Show full text]
  • HEANEY, SEAMUS, 1939-2013. Seamus Heaney Papers, 1951-2004
    HEANEY, SEAMUS, 1939-2013. Seamus Heaney papers, 1951-2004 Emory University Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library Atlanta, GA 30322 404-727-6887 [email protected] Collection Stored Off-Site All or portions of this collection are housed off-site. Materials can still be requested but researchers should expect a delay of up to two business days for retrieval. Descriptive Summary Creator: Heaney, Seamus, 1939-2013. Title: Seamus Heaney papers, 1951-2004 Call Number: Manuscript Collection No. 960 Extent: 49.5 linear feet (100 boxes), 3 oversized papers boxes (OP), and AV Masters: 1 linear foot (2 boxes) Abstract: Personal papers of Irish poet Seamus Heaney consisting mostly of correspondence, as well as some literary manuscripts, printed material, subject files, photographs, audiovisual material, and personal papers from 1951-2004. Language: Materials entirely in English. Administrative Information Restrictions on access Collection stored off-site. Researchers must contact the Rose Library in advance to access this collection. Special restrictions apply: Use copies have not been made for audiovisual material in this collection. Researchers must contact the Rose Library at least two weeks in advance for access to these items. Collection restrictions, copyright limitations, or technical complications may hinder the Rose Library's ability to provide access to audiovisual material. Terms Governing Use and Reproduction All requests subject to limitations noted in departmental policies on reproduction. Emory Libraries provides copies of its finding aids for use only in research and private study. Copies supplied may not be copied for others or otherwise distributed without prior consent of the holding repository.
    [Show full text]
  • Between the Bittern 183
    http://dx.doi.org/10.18778/2299-7458.06.09 Czytanie Literatury Łódzkie Studia Literaturoznawcze 6/2017 WIT ISSN 2299-7458 e-ISSN 2449-8386 PIETRZAK* Between the Bittern 183 and the Café du Monde: Paul Muldoon’s BETWEEN THE BITTERN AND THE CAFÉ DU MONDE… The Prince of the Quotidian1 Paul Muldoon’s poetry has long been infused with references to his life, raising the issue of the relation between the lived experience and its textual representations. It may be noted that Muldoon’s poetry departs from a Derridean premise. In Shibboleth: For Paul Celan, Derrida focuses on the notion of date, arguing that dating a poem, on the one hand, places it at a uniquely singular moment in time but, on the other, “to speak of it, one must also efface it, make it readable, audible, intelligible beyond the pure singularity of which it speaks”2. Therefore, shibboleth is no cypher behind which a moment from the past lies hidden; instead, it is a word-key to multifarious repetitions of the date, repetitions in which the now-effaced originary moment of inscription becomes a fiction due to the fact that the date “is not exactly the same but rather analogic to the other, and that is because the original date, as an encoded mark of the other here and now, was a kind of fiction in the first place, claiming its singularity solely thanks to fables of conventions and generalisations”3. To assume that Muldoon’s autobiographical references point to a singular moment in time or a particular person is tantamount to falling prey to the trap of “conventions and generalisations”.
    [Show full text]
  • Beckett and His Biographer: an Interview with James Knowlson José Francisco Fernández (Almería, Spain)
    The European English Messenger, 15.2 (2006) Beckett and His Biographer: An Interview with James Knowlson José Francisco Fernández (Almería, Spain) James Knowlson is Emeritus Professor of French at the University of Reading. He is also the founder of the International Beckett Foundation (previously the Beckett Archive) at Reading, and he has written extensively on the great Irish author. He began his monumental biography, Damned to Fame:The Life of Samuel Beckett (London: Bloomsbury, 1996) when Beckett was still alive, and he relied on the Nobel Prize winner’s active cooperation in the last months of his life. His book is widely acknowledged as the most accurate source of information on Beckett’s life, and can only be compared to Richard Ellmann’s magnificent biography of James Joyce. James Knowlson was interviewed in Tallahassee (Florida) on 11 February 2006, during the International Symposium “Beckett at 100: New Perspectives” held in that city under the sponsorship of Florida State University. I should like to express my gratitude to Professor Knowlson for giving me some of his time when he was most in demand to give interviews in the year of Beckett’s centennial celebrations. José Francisco Fernández JFF: Yours was the only biography on or even a reply to the earlier biography of authorised by Beckett. That must have been Deirdre Bair. It needs to stand on its own two a great responsibility. Did it represent at any feet. And I read with great fascination the time a burden? Knowing that what you wrote biography of Deirdre Bair and have never said would be taken as ‘the truth’.
    [Show full text]
  • A Poet's Rising
    A POET’S RISING A POET’S RISING In 2015 the Irish Writers Centre answered the Arts Council’s Open Call for 2016 and A Poet’s Rising was born. Our idea was this: to commission six of Ireland’s most eminent poets to respond through poetry focusing on a key historical figure and a particular location associated with the Rising. The poets would then be filmed in each discreet location and made permanent by way of an app, freely available for download. The resulting poems are beautiful, important works that deserve to be at the forefront of the wealth of artistic responses generated during this significant year in Ireland’s history. We are particularly proud to be producing this exceptional oeuvre in the year of our own 25th anniversary since the opening of the Irish Writers Centre. • James Connolly at Liberty Hall poem by Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin • Pádraig Pearse in the GPO poem by Paul Muldoon • Kathleen Lynn in City Hall poem by Jessica Traynor • The Ó Rathaille at O’Rahilly Parade poem by Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill • Elizabeth O’Farrell in Moore Lane poem by Theo Dorgan • The Fallen at the Garden of Remembrance poem by Thomas McCarthy We wish to thank Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Paul Muldoon, Jessica Traynor, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, Theo Dorgan and Thomas McCarthy for agreeing to take part and for their resonant contributions, and to Conor Kostick for writing the historical context links between each poem featured on the app. A special thanks goes to Colm Mac Con Iomaire, who has composed a beautiful and emotive score, entitled ‘Solasta’, featured throughout the app.
    [Show full text]
  • The Astray Belonging—The Perplexity of Identity in Paul Muldoon's Early
    International Conference on Humanities and Social Science (HSS 2016) The Astray Belonging—The Perplexity of Identity in Paul Muldoon’s Early Poems Jing YAN Sichuan Agricultural University, Dujiangyan, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China Keywords: Paul Muldoon, Northern Ireland, Identity, Perplexity. Abstract. As a poet born in a Catholic family in Northern Ireland but deeply influenced by the British literary tradition, Paul Muldoon’s identity is obviously multiple and complex especially from 1970s to 1980s when Northern Ireland was going through the most serious political, religious and cultural conflicts, all of which were unavoidably reflected in the early poems of Paul Muldoon. This thesis attempts to study the first four anthologies of Paul Muldoon from the perspective of Diaspora Criticism in Cultural Studies to discuss the issues of identities reflected in Muldoon’s poems. Obviously, the perplexity triggered by identities is not only of the poet himself but also concerning Northern Irish issues. Muldoon’s poems relating cultural identities present the universal perplexity of Irish identity. Introduction While Ireland is a small country in Western Europe, this tiny piece of magical land has given birth to countless literary giants. From Jonathan Swift and Richard Sheridan in the 18th century, to Oscar Wilde in the 19th century and all the way to James Joyce, George Bernard Shaw, Butler Yeats, Samuel Beckett and Seamus Heaney in the 20th century, there are countless remarkable Irish writers who help to build the reputation of Irish literature. Since 1960s or 1970s, the rise of Irish poetry began to draw world attention, particularly after poet Seamus Heaney won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995, Following Heaney, the later poets in Ireland are also talented in poetic creation, of whom ,the 2003 Pulitzer Prize winner Paul Muldoon is undoubtedly a prominent representative.
    [Show full text]
  • Soup of the Day Chowder of the Day Homemade Chili Irish Goat Cheese Salad Spicy Chicken Salad Smoked Pheasant Salad Smoked Salmo
    Soup of the Day Irish Goat Cheese Salad Smoked Pheasant Salad Served with brown bread & Irish butter Mixed greens tossed with sundried Smoked pheasant with rocket, Cup 3. Bowl 6. tomatoes, roasted red pepper, cherry shaved Irish cheddar, dried fruit, tomatoes, candied nuts crumbled candied nuts, red onion & shaved Chowder of the Day goat cheese, topped with a warm goat carrot 12. Served with brown bread & Irish butter cheese disc 10. Cup 3. Bowl 6. Smoked Salmon Salad Spicy Chicken Salad Chopped romaine lettuce, tomato, Homemade Chili Chopped romaine, bacon, tomato, Irish cheddar, peppers, red onion , Served with corn bread, scallions, cheese & scallions cup fried chicken tossed in blue cheese topped with slices of Irish oak Cup 3. Bowl 6. and buffalo sauce 12. smoked salmon 14. Frittatas Choice of smoked salmon & Irish cheddar, Irish sausage & bacon, shrimp & spinach or vegetarian. Served with choice of fruit, side salad or Sam’s spuds 12. Irish Breakfast Dalkey Benedict Mitchelstown Eggs Two bangers, two rashers, two black & white Slices of oak smoked salmon on top of two An Irish muffin with sautéed spinach, pudding, potato cake, eggs & baked beans, poached eggs with a potato cake base and poached eggs and hollandaise sauce 12. with Beckett’s brown bread 15. topped with hollandaise sauce 12. Tipperary Tart Baileys French Toast Roscrea Benedict A quiche consisting of leeks and Irish Cashel Brioche with a mango chutney and syrup. An Irish muffin topped with poached eggs blue cheese in a pastry shell. Served with a Served with choice of fruit or Sam’s spuds 12.
    [Show full text]
  • Downloaded from Downloaded on 2020-06-06T01:34:25Z Ollscoil Na Héireann, Corcaigh
    UCC Library and UCC researchers have made this item openly available. Please let us know how this has helped you. Thanks! Title A cultural history of The Great Book of Ireland – Leabhar Mór na hÉireann Author(s) Lawlor, James Publication date 2020-02-01 Original citation Lawlor, J. 2020. A cultural history of The Great Book of Ireland – Leabhar Mór na hÉireann. PhD Thesis, University College Cork. Type of publication Doctoral thesis Rights © 2020, James Lawlor. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Item downloaded http://hdl.handle.net/10468/10128 from Downloaded on 2020-06-06T01:34:25Z Ollscoil na hÉireann, Corcaigh National University of Ireland, Cork A Cultural History of The Great Book of Ireland – Leabhar Mór na hÉireann Thesis presented by James Lawlor, BA, MA Thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy University College Cork The School of English Head of School: Prof. Lee Jenkins Supervisors: Prof. Claire Connolly and Prof. Alex Davis. 2020 2 Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................... 4 Declaration .......................................................................................................................... 5 Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ 6 List of abbreviations used ................................................................................................... 7 A Note on The Great
    [Show full text]
  • Muldoon, Paul
    TEXT OF THE INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS DELIVERED BY: PROFESSOR SEAN RYDER, National University of Ireland, Galway on 3 December 2012 in the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, on the occasion of the conferring of the Degree of Doctor of Literature, honoris causa, on PROFESSOR PAUL MULDOON A Sheánsailéir, a mhuintir na hOllscoile agus a dhaoine uaisle, In the heavily populated world of poetry, in an age when we cannot but be aware of the enormous and intimidating back catalogue of the past, and at a point in history in which one may be tempted to doubt the possibility of creating anything new that isn’t a remix or a recycling, it is not easy to find a poet with the confidence and craft to make poetry that is genuinely fresh, a poetry that extends the canon rather than simply replays it. Yet Paul Muldoon is certainly such a poet. In his 11 volumes of poetry over a period of 40 years his has been a striking and compelling voice for readers of poetry not just in Ireland but all over the English - speaking world. It is a recognisable voice by now - alternately wry and dark, sometimes facetious, sometimes in deadly earnest. Always testing and torturing and playing with the language we all think we know, and making us realise we have only been using it at a fraction of its capacity. Paul Muldoon was born in Co Armagh and educated at Queen’s University, Belfast. Since 1987 he has lived in the United States, where he is now Howard GB Clark ’21 Professor at Princeton University, and Founding Chair of the Lewis Center for the Arts.
    [Show full text]
  • Paul Muldoon and the Context of Postmodernity
    Paul Muldoon and the Context of Postmodernity Stipe Grgas Faculty ofPhilosophy at Zadar, University of Split Abstract The main purpose of this article is not to rehearse the extant postmodernist readings of Muldoon's poetry, but to attempt to situate Muldoon within the constellation of contemporary Irish culture; in more general terms, to show how his poetry negotiates its late twentieth century context. The article proceeds by reviewing how Muldoon's poetry uses narrativity and how these narrative frameworks problematize historical agency and identity and the manner in which the poetry questions the heritage of the Enlightenment. The central part of the article is devoted to placing Muldoon within the processes of postmodernity, particularly its diasporic experience, the way it registers the contemporary mediascapes and the affective investment it records in the mobility of the globalized world. The iiltention of my artiele is neitlier to rehearse tl~eextant postmodernist readings of Muldoon's poetry nor to add another one to the growing stock-pile of interpretations. If at some points of my argument I refer to the poetics of postmodernism, I do so in order to foreground the manner in which Muldoon's poetry engages the context of postmodernity or whatever one chooses to cal1 our late European lifewords. Therefore my primary task is not to pronounce upon his poetic strategies, but rather to attempt to situate Muldoon with the constellation of contemporary Irish culture, to show how it negotiates its late twentieth century-condition. Charles Altieri begins his 1996 article on postmodernism and American poetry by suggesting that postmodernism as a theoretical concept is "dead" and that "it is unlikely to generate much significant new work" (764).
    [Show full text]