Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T22:38:04.135Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

6 - Poetry of the 1960s

the 'Northern Ireland Renaissance'

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 May 2006

Matthew Campbell
Affiliation:
University of Sheffield
Get access

Summary

In August 1970, Eavan Boland published a series of three articles in the Irish Times entitled ʿThe Northern writersʾ crisis of conscienceʾ. In the concluding article, Boland asks: ʿhow . . . will writers in Northern Ireland articulate the crisis in progress outside and within them, the retrospect on communities it must force, the needs it imposes to reorder increasingly chaotic impressions?ʾ. How will writers cope, she continues, with ʿsuch intractable, yet urgent materialʾ? Criticism may since have become more circumspect in approaching these questions, but their underlying assumptions still prove contentious in reading contemporary Irish poetry. In effect, Boland implicitly assumes here that Northern writers are a distinct group; that they have responsibilities towards the Troubles which are not necessarily shared by their Southern counterparts; that individual anxieties and conflicts manifest the anxieties of the state; that writers are identifiable with, or speak from, a particular religious community; and that poetry will, in MacNeiceʾs phrase, ʿmake sense of the world . . . put shape on itʾ in 1930s generation style.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2003

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×