Monday, 7 January 2008

Iris Éireannach Nua


...de la Universitato de Sankta Tomaso:

Three short essays marking the centennial of John Synge’s The Aran Islands comprise a “Radharc ar gCúl / Backward Glance” feature. From Canada, Ann Saddlemyer – Synge’s biographer and editor – looks at how Synge’s first book foreshadows the qualities and themes of his much-better-known later plays.

Then, the anthropologist Veerendra Lele of Denison University offers a present-day ethnographer’s response to Synge’s account of time among the islanders – particularly his approach to the Irish language.

Rounding out the section, Shawn Gillen of Beloit College appreciates The Aran Islands as a charter document in an evolving tradition of creative nonfiction in Ireland and elsewhere. Synge the stylist seems oddly familiar to present-day readers.

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