The Given Note: Traditional Music and Modern Irish Poetry

The oldest records indicate that the performance of poetry in Gaelic Ireland was normally accompanied by music, providing a point of continuity with past tradition while bolstering a sense of community in the present. Music would also offer, particularly for poets writing in English from the eighteenth century onwards, a perceived authenticity, a connection with an older tradition perceived as being untarnished by linguistic and cultural division. While providing an innovative analysis of theoretical work in music and literary studies, this book examines how traditional Irish music, including the related song tradition (primarily in Irish), has influenced, and is apparent in, the work of Irish poets. While looking generally at where this influence is evident historically and in contemporary Irish poetry, this work focuses primarily on the work of six poets, three who write in English and three who write primarily in the Irish language: Thomas Kinsella, Seamus Heaney, Ciaran Carson, Gearoid Mac Lochlainn, Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill and Cathal O'Searcaigh.

Sean Crosson is a PhD graduate from the Centre for Irish Studies in NUI, Galway. He currently teaches courses on Poetry and Music with the centre and also lectures on Irish and international film with the Huston School of Film & Digital Media. He has contributed chapters and articles on Irish literature, and film, to books and journals in Ireland and internationally including Nordic Irish Studies, Estudios Irlandeses: Journal of Irish Studies and e-Keltoi: Journal of Interdisciplinary Celtic Studies.