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 Cover of the first edition | |
| Editor | Robert Welch |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Subject | Irish literature |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press |
Publication date | 1996 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover) |
| Pages | 648 |
| ISBN | 978-0198661580 |
The Oxford Companion to Irish Literature is a 1996 book edited by Robert Welch.
The Oxford Companion to Irish Literature surveys the Irish literary landscape across sixteen centuries with over 2,000 entries. [1] Entries range from ogham writing to 1990s fiction, poetry, and drama. There are accounts of authors such as Adomnán, 7th-century Abbot of Iona, Roddy Doyle, Brian Friel, Seamus Heaney, and Edna O'Brien. [1] Individual entries are provided for all major works, like Táin Bó Cúailnge - the Ulster saga reflecting the Celtic Iron Age - to Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Edgeworth's Castle Rackrent, Ó Cadhain's Cré na Cille, and Banville's The Book of Evidence.
The book also presents some of the writers' historical contexts:
- The Irish Famine of 1845-8, which provided a theme for novelists, poets, and memoirists from William Carleton to Patrick Kavanagh and Peadar Ó Laoghaire.
- The founding of the Abbey Theatre and its impact on playwrights such as J. M. Synge and Padraic Colum; the Easter Rising which inspired Yeats to write ' Easter 1916'.
The Oxford Companion to Irish Literature has information on general topics, ranging from the stage Irishman to Catholicism, Protestantism, the Irish language, and university education in Ireland; and on genres such as annals, bardic poetry, and folksong. [1]
References
- ^ a b c Welch 2000, p. [ page needed].
Sources
- Welch, Robert (2000). The Concise Oxford Companion to Irish Literature. doi: 10.1093/acref/9780192800800.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-280080-0.