To Ireland, I

by Paul Muldoon

Paul Muldoon, one of the most important poets of his generation, has produced a firework display of scholarship, wit, and intrigue in this idiosyncratic wander through the alphabet of Irish literature. From Beckett and Bowen, through Joyce, MacNeice, Swift, and Yeats, To Ireland, I is a
provocative re-reading of the major Irish authors, with a particular emphasis on the continuity of the tradition.

Genres: Poetry

158 pages, Hardcover

First published July 13, 2000

About the author

Born in Northern Ireland, Muldoon currently resides in the US and teaches at Princeton University. He held the chair of Professor of Poetry at Oxford University from 1999 through 2004. In September 2007, Muldoon became the poetry editor of The New Yorker.

Awards:
1992: Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize for Madoc: A Mystery
1994: T. S. Eliot Prize for The Annals of Chile
1997: Irish Times Irish Literature Prize for Poetry for New Selected Poems 1968–1994
2002: T. S. Eliot Prize (shortlist) for Moy Sand and Gravel
2003: Griffin Poetry Prize (Canada) for Moy Sand and Gravel
2003: Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Moy Sand and Gravel
2004: American Ireland Fund Literary Award
2004: Aspen Prize
2004: Shakespeare Prize

Reviews

[Peter Graarup Westergaard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant

[Alexandre Andrade · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe this would work better in the original form of a series of lectures. Maybe Muldoon's charm and physical presence are assets that would make these essays shine through, in front of an audience. As a book, "To Ireland, I" is too contrived. The abecedary structure of this collection of essays on Irish literature didn't seem such a bad idea. However, this contraints Muldoon to resort to a plethora of associations, links and purported influences between authors, centuries and works, that are put forward in what for all purposes in an arbitrary order. Quite frankly, more often than not what comes across is an attempt to ram square pegs into round holes that has little to do with scholarship or literary history. I realize that some of these links are self-consciously far-fetched and are made with tongue solidly planted in cheek, but still, the tiresome web of alleged lineages and echos that the author weaves is annoying and it distracts the reader from some genuinely interesting and ingenious discussions that are to be found throughout the book. I admire Muldoon as a poet, but I don't think that this venture into literary essay was a successful one. His insight and knowledge is not in question, but the whole approach that he chose proved to be too challenging, and not in a fecund way.

[Shawn Mitchell]

http://shawnandrewmitchell.com/2011/0...