Introduction to Early Irish Literature

by Muireann Ní Bhrolchain

This book discusses the rich written heritage of the Old and Middle Irish period, 600-1200, and is suitable for students of medieval Ireland as well as the general reader who wants to learn about the stories, poetry and themes of early Irish literature. Early chapters deal with the poets, druids, monks, the beginnings of writing, manuscripts as well as an introduction to each of the saga cycles. These sagas contain the stories of heroes such as Cu Chulainn and Finn mac Cumaill as well as kings, such as Cormac mac Airt. Further chapters focus on the poets and their poetry, the heroes visiting the Otherworld, the births and deaths of famous heroes as well as stories about kings, kingship and sovereignty goddesses. Included also is a bibliography and a comprehensive index including personal and place names.

Genres: History, Medieval, Ireland, Irish Literature, Nonfiction, Mythology, Literature

210 pages, Hardcover

First published October 20, 2009

Reviews

[Maya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Please read my review at Celtic Scholar's Reviews and Opinions

[Terese · Rating 4 out of 5]

Smart, concise and clear. A great introduction that's easy to follow and functions as a great companion to most early irish myths that you might want to read. If you're a newbie to the field, like me, I kind of feel like this is a must have.

[Prenna · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent overview of the characters and themes in the literature. Best read either with some pre-existing knowledge of the original texts, or in conjunction with them.

[Jean · Rating 5 out of 5]

This excellent book is a worthy successor to Myles Dillon 'Early Irish Literature' (1948). In addition to her introductions to each genre, the author summarizes the most important stories in each. These summaries show more clearly than any other method could how very different early Irish society--its organization, its laws, and its interests--were from those of contemporary English and Continental and certainly from those of the modern world. Identifying a common vision with other cultures is not so difficult when examining Ireland's early religious literature, but one has to dig deep into the more alien secular literature to identify a shared understanding even though the earliest versions of these stories were transcribed in Irish monasteries by Christian scribes. This short but dense study is a must-have book for anyone interested in early Irish society and should be read in conjunction with the stories she describes, which can be found in Cross and Slover 'Ancient Irish Tales', Jeffrey Gantz 'Early Irish Myths and Sagas', and Koch and Carey 'The Celtic Heroic Age', and Green and O'Connor 'A Golden Treasury of Irish Poetry, A.D. 600-1200.

[M F]

This is a decent intro but I'm not sure how easy I'd find it to follow the summaries given of various stories if I didn't already know them. There could definitely have been more explanation of what exactly is going on at times, since that's not always clear.