Irish Classics

Convergences: Inventories of the Present

by Declan Kiberd

Stretching back to 1600 and covering works in English and Gaelic, "Irish Classics" scrutinizes the enduring Irish classics that have challenged new readers generation after generation. Irish themes are explored as inspiration for the bitter poetry of Seathrun Ceitinn and the prose of Jonathan Swift and Edmund Burke. Analogies are made between modern and classic writers. Although Kiberd acknowledges that often frictions existed between the two languages he finds that, nevertheless, strong similarities override both.

Genres: Ireland, Irish Literature, Literature, Poetry, Nonfiction

704 pages, Paperback

First published October 10, 2000

About the author

Declan Kiberd is a professor of Anglo-Irish literature at the University College Dublin and the author of Inventing Ireland: The Literature of the Modern Nation, which won the Irish Times Prize, and of Ulysses and Us: The Art of Everyday Life in Joyce's Masterpiece. He lives in Dublin.