particularly to those writers who wish their poetry to
connect with traditional music.
Dr. Crosson has chosen to focus on a number of
poets who have made explicit reference to
traditional music in their writings, either in Irish or
in English. Having outlined the interaction between
music and poetry in early modern Ireland, the study
goes on to consider briefly writers from the
eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries, including
Charlotte Brooke, Thomas Moore, Douglas Hyde,
W. B. Yeats, Austin Clarke and Patrick Kavanagh.
The central development of the book, however,
explores in detail the works of six major poets of the
last half-century: Thomas Kinsella, Seamus Heaney,
Ciaran Carson, writing in English, and Nuala Ní
Dhomhnaill, Cathal Ó Searcaigh and Gearóid Mac
Lochlainn writing in Irish. The author’s careful
readings and explications of their work begins to
explore distinctions between them, the poetry of
some being closer to the ethos of traditional music
than others.
In many cases, traditional music allows the
expression of that anxiety that Kinsella first
identified as the consequence of the loss of Irish as
the language of the majority of the people, whereby
“I must exchange one language for another, my
native English for eighteenth century Irish”. Crosson
argues that allusions to traditional music reflect
unease on the part of the poets at the historical
discontinuity in Irish writing and the poets’ own
uncertain relationship with a contemporary
audience. This difficulty does not seem to exist for
traditional music, whether instrumental or sung, and
so the rituals of performance imply authenticity and
a sense of community. While commentators and
historians of music, and Crosson himself, would
question this simplified view of the music, it
nonetheless has been of interest to the poets, and this
is the central exploration of this book. By means of
detailed readings of the poems, combined with
consideration of the metrics of many of them, this
book examines in a sensitive and readable study the
responses of the six recent poets who are here
discussed. It is certainly the most thorough
exploration of this subject to date, and combines
awareness of music with the practice of poetry in an
original and compelling way.
Dr. Riana O’Dwyer, Senior Lecturer,
English Department, NUI Galway.
Order through your supplier; by writing to us at CSP, PO Box 302, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 1WR, UK;
by telephone at (US) +1 919 783 4013 or online at www.c-s-p.org. Most major credit cards accepted.
Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Academic Publishers
“The Given Note”
Traditional Music and Modern Irish Poetry
by
Seán Crosson
ISBN: 9781847185693, 34.99 GBP, US$ 69.99, 314pp.
This book draws on a wide range of theoretical
perspectives to construct an exploratory inquiry
detailing and interrogating previously unarticulated
connections between words and music. Despite the
breathtaking wealth of referential material, the
model that emerges is subtle, nuanced and flexible,
handled with the sure and elegant touch of one who
is supremely aware of the possibilities of effects at
the nexus of these two intertwined media…This
pioneering work is sure to herald other studies in
this rich field of inquiry, and provides an exemplary
model which leads the way with confident
assurance.
Dr. Lillis Ó Laoire, Foreword, “The Given Note”
Traditional Music and Modern Irish Poetry.
This book makes an original contribution to the field
of Irish Studies. It is particularly impressive in
discussing together the normally disparate studies of
Irish literature (in both languages), metrics, music
and orality studies. The study is clearly well-written
in a clean uncluttered style and proceeds with a
logic of argument which carries the reader along.
Professor Alan Titley, Head of Department of
Modern Irish, University College Cork.
Seán Crosson, himself a composer and performer,
has written a penetrating and nuanced study of the
influence of traditional music and song on modern
Irish poetry. While it may seem that poetry is
inherently musical, since it involves the arrangement
of words for their sound values as well as their
meanings, this is more difficult to verify than one
might imagine. Thus the author has marshalled an
impressive range of expertise to explore his initial
hunch that the relationship is fundamental, ranging
from practitioners of Words and Music Studies
through Orality Studies, through Ethnomusicology,
and through Literary Theory. Having considered the
implications of all of these methodologies, he argues
convincingly that a model of “covert intermediality”
offers the best explanation for the relationship with
contemporary Irish poetry. His initial clarification
of the concept of “traditional music” is also
exemplary, as he emphasises that transmission of the
tradition is oral, where each performance involves a
connection with an “authentic” past as well as the
creation of a community in the present, something
that the poets also try to achieve. For this
community to be created, the audience as well as the
musicians must submit to the conventions or ritual
of the performance: thus the participants are
connected to the past in the very act of creating
music in the present. This aspect is one that appeals