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And a Happy St. Patrick's to you, Mr. Watson. I am celebrating by attending a French movie. (speaking of historic betrayals of the Irish ...)
There is a good play by Brian Friel on Broadway right now called "Translations," about how the British systematically went through the country renaming things. We could have had "The Rocky Road to Baile Atha Cliath" but the Brits decided it would be Dublin.
I was in Galway 2 years ago for Christmas, and the amount of Irish being spoken on cell phones in the streets and cafes was astonishing. Constitutionally, Irish, or Gaelic Irish, is the nation's offical first language, with English as second offical language.
I remember reading Matthew Arnold in a college class on the differences between the Celts and the Saxons, as an example of racialist/imperalist thought. Amusing now to think that the distinction he was drawing does not actually even exist at the level of genetics.
Now if you'll excuse me, I am obligated to go celebrate the fact that my mother's maiden name was Riley.
"And in spite of everything, Ireland remains the brain of the United Kingdom. The English, judiciously practical and ponderous, furnish the over-stuffed stomach of humanity with a perfect gadget -- the water closet. The Irish, condemned to express themselves in a language not their own, have stamped on it the mark of their own genius and compete for glory with the civilized nations. This is then called English literature...."
-- from James Joyce's course material, used while teaching English to Berlitz students in Trieste, in 1906. From Richard Ellman's James Joyce, p. 217
Also, a great post in Cork. Works both ways.
I found another Joyce quote from the same source, which I held in reserve for my own porpoises....
I think "former" is the more precise term than "sometime". There is no reason to regard the relationship as adversarial today, but to suggest the hostility has been sporadic, as your phrasing does, is absurd.
*The Irish, said Cahill, are “generous, handsome, and brave.â€Â*
As former Fordham Law School Dean and Federal Judge (and Pelham resident) Willam Hughes Mulligan has often put it, capturing nicely the appropriate view toward this sort of nonsense: "It is generally accepted that, execept for the ugly ones, the Irish are the most attractive people on the planet."
Sporadic - hmm, not sure I suggested that. Used "sometime," which is a bit more accurate but perhaps not le mot juste - still, even from Cromwell to the republic, hostilities weren't sustained. And the period of time the geneticists reference is in the thousands of years, not the hundreds.
Former is certainly correct.
Throughout, language has been a uniter, not a divider (ultimately). I'll assume you enjoyed this one!
Your presumption is that English literature is enriched by the addition of Irish authors. Certainly, I can see why you think so. But there's the school -- I'll call it the "Little Englanders" -- who say, we'll stand with Shakespeare, Milton, Chaucer, Johnson, et al., and be judged without the Hibernian contingent; impressive though it may be, it is not us.
Eliot wrote an interesting essay from this perspective, at a time when, as he admitted, the state if Irish letters was much stronger than the English (1920's). He basically said, let's not salvage ourselves by relying on foreign elements: let's do it by improving English literature ourselves. (I can't recall if he noted the irony of his own foreigness).
I suppose it comes down to how you view nationality and culture: are they defined principally by language? If so, English Lit. should include all Eng-speaking peoples, from Washington Irving through Salman Rushdie right there with Laurence Sterne. If you parse it a little finer, the role of Anglo-Irish authors like, say, Swift get pretty tough to fix. All in all, a messy business. But as they said in "Breaker Morant": "This is what comes from empire building."
The language, which pre-dated the empire, will far outlast it as well...
Yes, that's true. Oppression was sustained, but hostilities were often not ongoing, due to the thoroughness of the most recent ass-kicking administered to the unruly natives.
I'll stand by my contention that "sometime enemies" completely fails to convey the nature of the relationship, even while being literally true. (As there was a time before, and after, the adversarial relationship which, depending how you look at it, lasted betwee 400-800 years, and ended in the lifespan of the still-living.)
That little "(successfully)" begs the question. Whether Irving and Cooper are part of "English" literature is far from an established thing.
English literature is written by English-speaking people.
I'm with Tom K that English literaure does not encompass Irish and American lit. Unless it has changed since I was in college, an English major takes a core in Chaucer, Milton, Shakespeare, etc., and must take a designated "Irish lit" class or "American Lit" class to study any of those writers. American Lit is usually its own major.
And, I just heard in a review of "The Wind that Shakes the Barley" there's a scene where the Black and Tans, in the 1920s, beat a man to death for not speaking his name in English.
Ken Loach is attesting to the struggle of the Irish to keep their identity through language, even as the Irish Free State was being born, primarily in English.
as for irish literature, i have attempted and failed to engage with ulysses so many times now i focus on the works of flann o'brien. that's more my level.
anyway, to celebrate drink and literature we should have a dylan thomas day; now that would make a great parade in new york and would be apt also with some of his favourite watering holes being in that fine city - the white horse tavern being a mutual favourite.
yachy da!
Sykes is an Oxford geneticist and probably had a great deal to do with said research.
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