Repossessions: Selected Essays on the Irish Poetic Heritage (Literature)

Repossessions is an exceptional achievement, illustrating as it does the unique work of a poet and literary scholar, well-known for his original thinking and accessible approach to literary subjects in Irish. Although he has published widely in Irish language journals and has edited with Thomas Kinsella the highly acclaimed An Duanaire/Poems of the Dispossessed, this is the first time that the full breadth of his critical work has been made available in English.
Using translations of the original texts for his commentary, the author begins with an examination of the work of Sean O Riordain and Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill. There follows discussions on seventeenth and eighteenth century poetry, Brian Merriman, the renowned Lament for Art O'Leary, the world of Aogan O Rathaille, and an examination of the European context of Irish love poetry from the thirteenth century through to the mid-seventeenth century, acknowledged to be one of the most significant contributions to Irish literary history.