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From one of the great Irish writers of the twentieth century, and one of the few whose work bears comparison with that of Joyce and Beckett. Aidan Higgins's greatest novel has long been unavailable, and is here reissued in a new and revised edition. Balcony of Europe, which was shortlisted for the 1972 Booker Prize, tells the story of a complacent young Jewish wife from San Francisco and a middle-aged Irish painter who meet in a village on the coast of Spain, beginning an affair during the coldest European winter in two hundred years--all the while surrounded by a cast of characters as bizarre and hilarious as they are, finally, touching. Lyrical and humorous, heartbreaking and hopeful, Balcony of Europe is Aidan Higgins's crowning achievement. . ... Read more

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These essays, which cover a period of more than 30 years, trace some of the major developments in the criticism of James Joyce's works, revealing the critical tradition through which Joyce came to be considered a cultural icon. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (8)

Irish Myths and Legends
THIS BOOK IS A MINI BOOK!!!IT IS ABOUT TWO INCHES BY TWO INCHES.ANYONE THAT READS IT MUST HAVE VERY GOOD EYESIGHT!!!I WOULDN'T RECOMMEND IT TO ANYONE.

Really Really Small
I was incredibly surprised and disappointed when I received this book in the mail. I had ordered it for my wife's birthday and couldn't believe how small it was. I wish I had had some warning. She finished reading it in about 10 minutes.

Irish myths
This very tiny book is very disappointing. I was expecting Lady Gregory's classic book of myths--a tome of a couple hundred pages. This little edition might be nice for a young child but was not what I wanted to introduce my niece to her classic heritage.

This is a tiny little 1 inch book.
FYI...this book is about an inch and a half square. This is like a keychain size book. You can't really tell that from the picture.

Not the edition you're looking for
This edition offers only a small selection of Lady Gregory's _Gods and Fighting Men_, plus the book itself is about 2" by 4".In other words, this book is really a souvenir--not a text to be read.You probably want to get the full text of _Gods and Fighting Men_ instead. ... Read more

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IRISH TIMES sketches an alternative conception of historical time. It argues that ways of living that are recalcitrant to capitalist logic, and therefore targeted for destruction, are not backward remainders of outmoded traditions, but are themselves adaptations of older formations that responded to earlier waves of modernization. Modernity does not replace tradition, nor tradition lag behind modernity, but each emerges always in differential relation to its counterpart. Irish culture has been deeply informed by this sense of layered time, in the ways it is haunted by unworked-through pasts and in the self-conscious theory and practice of Irish political and aesthetic modernism. In essays on the memory and commemoration of the Famine, on James Connolly s and James Joyce s parallel explorations of history and temporality, and on the figure of the ruin in Irish culture and visual art, DAVID LLOYD analyzes the persistence of the non-modern in Irish culture, showing it to be a resource for cultural invention rather than a drag on progress and modernization. The living on of supposedly exhausted cultural practices offers, he argues, still viable utopian possibilities, even at a moment when capitalist modernity seems to have become universally sovereign. ... Read more

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    Under the strict rule of twentieth century Irish censorship, creators of novels, films, and most periodicals found no option but to submit and conform to standards.  Stage productions, however, escaped official censorship. The theater became a "public space"—a place to air cultural confrontations between Church and State, individual and community, and "freedom of the theatre" versus the audience’s right to disagree.
    Joan FitzPatrick Dean’s Riot and Great Anger suggests that while there was no state censorship in early-twentieth-century Ireland, the theater often evoked heated responses from theatergoers, sometimes resulting in riots and the public denunciation of playwrights and artists. Dean examines the plays that provoked these controversies, the degree to which they were "censored" by the audience or actors, and the range of responses from both the press and the courts. She addresses familiar pieces such as those of William Butler Yeats, John Millington Synge, and Sean O’Casey, as well as the works of less known playwrights such as George Birmingham. Dean’s original research meticulously analyzes Ireland’s great theatrical tradition, both on the stage and off, concluding that the public responses to these controversial productions reveal a country that, at century’s end as at its beginning, was pluralistic, heterogeneous, and complex.   ... Read more

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Here, in one complete volume, is the depth and breadth of the great island nation and its people represented in an easily browsed, friendly format. From the Abbey Theatre to the Dublin storyteller Zozimus; from the origin of the Troubles to the origin of the limerick; from the stunning beauty of Connemara to the shattering tragedy of Bloody Sunday; from the greatest writers of the English language to the “confrontational television” of Gay Byrne’s The Late Late Show–every aspect of Irish culture, geography, and history is collected and annotated in more than 900 entries from A to Z. Readers will encounter heroes and terrorists, poets and politicians, all of Ireland’s counties, ancient myths, and pivotal events–all expertly and succinctly described and explained.

With entries written by some of the world’s leading authorities on Ireland, Everything Irish is perfect for everyone, from the inquiring reader to the serious student. You can spend a few minutes learning about the much-maligned Travelers and then move on to the equally contentious (in its time) medieval tithe. Visit the majestic Cliffs of Moher and then delve into an analysis of paramilitary groups like the Irish Republican Army and the Ulster Volunteer Force. Explore the ruins of a Romanesque castle or experience the piercing light of the winter solstice inside prehistoric Newgrange, a passage grave older than the pyramids.

Across centuries and across counties, the rich landscape of Irish life and heritage springs to life in these pages. An indispensable source of fascinating information and captivating anecdote, this is one book that will never be far from the hands of those with curious minds or an adventurous spirit.


From the Hardcover edition. ... Read more

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Declan Kiberd, author of the award-winning Irish Classics and Inventing Ireland, argues that political conflict between Ireland and England ultimately resulted in cultural confluence--causing the English literary tradition to greatly influence Irish language writing. Continuing his exploration of the role of Irish politics and culture in a decolonizing world, Kiberd covers Anglo-Irish literature, the fate of the Irish language and the Celtic Tiger. This collection of Kiberd's work over twenty-five years demonstrates the extraordinary range, astuteness and wit that have made him a defining voice in Irish studies and beyond. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

18 diverse & stimulating essays, 1979-2003
Kiberd's always worth learning from--his scholarship combines rigor with breadth, accessibility with scope. This collection of his essays starts with a couple he wrote when he was about 28, a humbling achievement for the rest of us considering! Its 18 articles are accompanied by an introduction that places his academic explorations alongside the changing Ireland of the 80s-up to 2003. My favorites were the Irish-themed ones, and some of the selections keep more closely in pace with Irish literature than others that track Kiberd's comparative forays into more post-colonial and multicultural issues. He clearly seeks to travel alongside Edward Said in his own orientation (pun intended?) that considers the arguments of both revisionists and nationalists in their contesting the place of the British within whatever a native Irish culture could produce. The two are never separate, of course, and in his essay urging a dual Irish Studies curriculum, one grounded in both the Irish and English languages, his connection with both sides shows how necessary, and unfortunately how relatively rare, such a command of both literatures remains among scholars.

Kiberd began his lectureship in Irish, only transferring to teaching English it seems, after the failure of this dual-track program to be established. His insistence upon the necessity to consider both languages and not to compartamentalize or ghettoize either one remains an essential warning in our increasingly fragmented educational arrangements not to lose sight of the other side of what for centuries has been a dual-language island. As he reminds us: the Irish were the only European people "who taught themselves English in their own country," and who chose--not always under direct coercion--to surrender their legacy of Irish for that of a more pragmatically necessary English, as most 19c Irish decided to do. (283-4)

In a sustained and wide-roaming introduction reprinted here to his co-edited "The Flowering Tree" anthology of poems presented in both languages, he considers what since the mid-80s has only accelerated: Ireland as an open-air museum for "spiritual tourism," sold to both foreigners and the anglicized Irish themselves as a commodity rare and therefore more valuable than when a Gaelic-speaking Ireland actually existed. (118-9)This "war against the past," Kiberd studies, draws in everything from psychology to colonialism to revolution and rebellion and emasculation as Ireland, over its past century, struggles clumsily to grow up apart from Britain.

There's lots for further thinking in these pages, and while some essays seem too discursive in their attempt to cover so much terrain within a few pages that occasionally they wander off on welcome but unnecessary digressions, this is a small fault for a diverse and intelligent volume of commentary. ... Read more

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A Concise Companion to Contemporary British and Irish Drama investigates key issues in British and Irish theatre since 1979. Covering topics from globalisation, genocide and terrorism to the use of new technologies, and physical and verbatim theatre practices, this volume illustrates the extraordinary diversity of contemporary drama and performance.

• Examines established and emerging playwrights, theatre companies, processes and ideological frameworks
  
• Analyses influential social, political, cultural and institutional contexts, among them globalization, genocide, and national identity, the use of new technologies, and the practice of physical theatre
  
• Challenges received ideas of the traditional canon, exploring work by Welsh, Scottish and Irish playwrights, as well as Black British Theatre, and Queer Theatres
  
• Chapters include notes, references, and guides to further reading

Product Description
The Irish novel has had a distinguished history. It spans such diverse authors as James Joyce, George Moore, Maria Edgeworth, Bram Stoker, Flann O'Brien, Samuel Beckett, Lady Morgan, John Banville, and others. Yet it has until now received less critical attention than Irish poetry and drama. This volume covers three hundred years of Irish achievement in fiction, with essays on key genres, themes, and authors. It provides critiques of individual works, accounts of important novelists, and histories of sub-genres and allied narrative forms, establishing significant social and political contexts for dozens of novels. The varied perspectives and emphases by more than a dozen critics and literary historians ensure that the Irish novel receives due tribute for its colour, variety and linguistic verve. Each chapter features recommended further reading. This is the perfect overview for students of the Irish novel from the romances of the seventeenth century to the present day. ... Read more

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This collection has been edited to reflect the changing nature of criticism and scholarship in relation to the Romantic period. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Challenging, Rewarding Essays by Distinguished Academics
Published in ten volumes, The Penguin History of Literature is a critical survey of English and American literature. Volume 5, The Romantic Period, is comprised of twelve independent essays authored by distinguished academics. These detailed, thought-provoking essays will appeal primarily to upper level students in history and English literature. David B. Pirie edited this collection as well as contributing the interesting essay on John Keats.

Seven chapters address the works of influential literary figures including Jane Austen, William Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and John Keats. Scholarly, detailed, semi-biographical essays do assume substantial familiarity with their poetry, prose and letters. However, the persistent reader is rewarded with a greater insight into the interplay of politics and literature during this turbulent period of English history.

Five more general chapters are devoted to analyzing political and social change:

Events Have Made Us A World of Readers - a thoughtful, detailed examination of the rapid growth and democratization of the reading public 1780-1830. Universal literacy, initially viewed as a harbinger of anarchy, was seen by the mid-nineteenth century as a precondition for political stability.

Politics and the Novel 1780-1830 - the novel, in 1780 considered the lowest of literary genre, was revitalized by the realization that fiction could be a powerful tool for influencing public opinion. A difficult chapter - I was unacquainted with the writings of period authors like Robert Bage, Charlotte Smith, Elizabeth Inchbald, Jane West, Maria Edgeworth, Amelia Opie, and Thomas Peacock. Only the section on Sir Walter Scott was familiar ground.

Representing the People: Crabbe, Southey, and Hazlitt - popular liberties, popular will, and popular sovereignty were new, problematic concepts. This fascinating essay looks at how three writers very differently approached these new ideas.

Poor Relations: Writing in the Working Class 1770-1835 - The reading public was charitable to literary curiosities (an untutored muse, a Suffolk cottager, an orphan poet, a blind poet, a poetic shoemaker, etc.) provided that appropriate poetic forms, topics, and social norms were observed. Working class authors of revolutionary tracts rarely had access to book publishing.

Orientalism - a detailed (perhaps, overly so) examination of the influence of oriental culture on English Romantic literature and poetry, particularly as British colonialism expanded into India.

Suggestion: The appendix contains a useful Table of Dates (1770-1837), 26-pages in length. I recommend reading (not simply scanning) this intriguing compilation of historical events before studying the essays themselves.An extensive bibliography is also provided. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Irish Literature
Too much of textbook for me.Info was good but basic.Average.Good turnaround.

Irish Literature
Readers should understand that this is the ONLY overview of Irish Literature we have in print.It is a perfect text for American students, the best text there is to serve as the foundation text for any introductory Irish Studies course.The editors chose to forgo inclusion of literary works readily available for the most part (Yeats, O'Casey, and the like), to give precedence to more to those that are harder to find, but which need to be studied seriously in order to get an overall understanding of Irish literature. ... Read more

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Featuring new essays by international literary scholars, the two-volume Companion to Irish Literature encompasses the full breadth of Ireland's literary tradition from the Middle Ages to the present day.

•  Covers an unprecedented historical range of Irish literature
• Arranged in two volumes covering Irish literature from the medieval period to 1900, and its development through the twentieth century to the present day
• Presents a re-visioning of twentieth-century Irish literature and a collection of the most up-to-date scholarship in the field as a whole
• Includes a substantial number of women writers from the eighteenth century to the present day
• Includes essays on leading contemporary authors, including Brian Friel, Seamus Heaney, Eavan Boland, Roddy Doyle, and Emma Donoghue
• Introduces readers to the wide range of current approaches to studying Irish literature

... Read more

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Irish Blessings: With Legends, Poems & Greetings.This unique charm of the Irish shines through in this delightful collection of 154 blessings, poems and inspirational wishes.Also incl. the legends of the shamrock, the leprechaun, the Blarney Stone, etc.Simulated green leather covers with silver stamping.4 X 7. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Irish Blessings
We received the Irish Blessings book and are pleased.It was just as represented and very welcome.

How much is this book worth?
Very disappointed. This is a book with 87 pages and some poorly drawn illustrations. All for the low, low price of
$53.00 including shipping!!!!!! What was I thinking? Not feeing as blessed as the seller is right now!

Cute Book
This is a really cute book, quite small but filled with wonderful Irish sayings and wisdom. I would recommend it as a stocking stuffer, or even a gift by itself. It really is a timeless collection, and I end up giving one away nearly every year.

Great for a wedding blessing
I liked this little book, we used it on my wedding, and our friends weddings.It's fun and almost always witty.Worth the little price.

Quaint and adorable
Even the cover of this book is great.Chock full of sayings and blessings.A wonderful companion for an Irish wedding.Some of the sayings would make great conversation pieces when placed on place cards!!! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

The best possible introduction to modern Irish writers
This is a fine wicked knowledgeable book, and entirely readable, especially the beginning, which can be read aloud straight through without losing you your audience.

I first met =A Colder Eye= when I was one of the editors of a literary criticism reference series. We were proceeding alphabetically, which meant that when we hit "O" we got half the Irish writers in one go, also alphabetic near neighbors like Mary Lavin. I found =A Colder Eye= on the shelf at Columbia University's main library, and went flipping through its index to see whether it had substantial sections on the authors I was researching. What I found was that all its index listings for authors had epithets attached: "O'Casey, Sean," it said, "ventriloquist."

"?", I thought, and checked another.

"O'Nolan, Brian," it said, "logician."

"Right," said I, and put the book on my small and extremely selective "books to be checked out" stack. As I knew only too well after reading several small mountain ranges of literary criticism and rejecting most of it, a critic who can joke about his subject, and get it right, is to be cherished. Hugh Kenner knows his stuff.

(It's one of the two great funny indices in English literature, the other being of course the index to =The Spotted Owl=; but leave that for another day.)

You would be well rewarded for buying =A Colder Eye= in hardcover if you did nothing more than read the part about the charming unreliability of Irish recollections; and allow me to say that the ghost of Brian O'Nolan should be both ashamed and proud of himself for perpetrating the interview with James Joyce Senior.

There's nothing else so good on its subject as this book. Enough. Go buy it now.

(And if you like it? Hunt up a copy of Walter Bryan's (that is, Walt Willis's) =The Improbable Irish=. If you like both, you may need to acquaint yourself with the works of Brian O'Nolan. But start with Hugh Kenner.)

Accessible, informative, funny
A deliciously funny and engaging look at the personalities and history behind Irish literature in a tumultuous time.The care and humor with which Kenner treats the subject of Yeats is just beautiful.Several timesI laughed out loud while reading it on public mass transit, much to thedismay and confusion of my fellow riders, but I just couldn't help it.Ican hardly wait to read Kenner's other works (and I wish I'd discovered hima long time ago). ... Read more