Life
America scholar and editor of 1000 Years of Irish Poetry (1947),
with sections of ‘Ancient Irish Poetry, ‘Modern Irish Poetry,
‘Anonymous Streeet Ballads’, ‘Anglo-Irish Poetry’,
‘’Notes on the Poets, the Translators, and the Great Books’.
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Works
1000 Years of Irish Poetry: The Gaelic and Anglo-Irish Poets from Pagan
Times to the Present (NY: Devin-Adiar 1947), 885pp.
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Commentary
Gerry Smyth, Decolonisation and Criticism: The Construction of Irish
Literature (London: Pluto Press 1998), p.168-70.: quotes, ‘Many
poets to whom I have spoken - writers who are well-known in this country
and abroad, authors educated at various universities stared blankly when
told that a collection of Irish poetry covering more than a thousand years
was in the process of compilation. But the long unbroken chain of Irish
poetic genius has stretched over a period of two thousand years and there
is documentary evidence of it in the huge manuscript volumes preserved
at Dublin, Oxford, Brussels and many other renowned seats of learning.’
(1000 Years of Irish Poetry, 1947, Introduction xxiii; Smyth, p.169);
further, ‘A mysterious unity of attitude or spiritual homogeneity
identifies and marks out these Celtic people today as it did in ancient
times […] . A sadness pervades their genius. For all their gay songs
and happy abandon, the Irish have more laments and dirges and accounts
of bloody battles and defeats than have any other branch of the Celts.
On the other hand, the Irish have much more humor than their brother Celts.
(p.xxv; Smyth, p.169); ‘wet blanket of censorship’ (liii; Smyth,
pp.170.)
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Quotations
1000 Years of Irish Poetry (1947), Introduction: 'Authors educated at various universities stared blankly when told that
a collection of Irish poetry covering more than a thousand years was in
the process of compilation. But the long unbroken chain of Irish poetic
genius has stretched over a period of two thousand years and there is
documentary evidence of it in the huge manuscript volumes preserved at
Dublin, Oxford, Brussels and many other renowned seats of learning.’ ( p.xxiii; quoted in Smyth, op. cit., p.169.)
Further, ‘A mysterious unity of attitude or spiritual homogeneity identifies and marks out these Celtic people today as it did in ancient times […] . A sadness pervades their genius. For all their gay songs and happy abandon, the Irish have more laments and dirges and accounts of bloody battles and defeats than have any other branch of the Celts. On the other hand, the Irish have much more humor than their brother Celts (ibid., p.xxv; Smyth, p.169); ‘wet blanket of censorship’ (ibid., p.liii; Smyth, pp.170.)
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