Description
Book SynopsisA study of the Irish modernist poet, Brian Coffey (1905-95), whose work has always been regarded as difficult. This text aims to explain how the poems release their meaning and guide the reader in understanding the poet's work. It includes early poems, the late long poems and Coffey's translations from the French of poems by Gerard de Nerval, Rimbaud and Mallarme.
Trade Review"A first-class academic study, particularly pleasant to hand and eye, with a useful chronology of Coffey's life, sources, bibliography, index." Books Ireland Summer 2000 "Donal Moriarty [has] written a groundbreaking and exciting study in which the general reader and student alike can recognise the true range of Irish poetry and the quite different backgrounds and artistic ambition of poets who happen to come from this country." Gerald Dawe Irish Times August 2000 "Nothing deserves a warmer welcome than this full-length study of Coffey's poetry yet one might spend a whole night if not longer arguing with Moriarty about his findings and critical affirmations." Books Ireland Oct 2000 "It's encouraging to see an academic in these islands tackling living writers of little official reputation - a brave engagement." Shearman 43 2000 "contribute[s] greatly to our understanding not only of the individual poet's work but ... how Coffey took from and contributed to the wider poetic scene, both in Ireland and abroad. Moriarty [is] to be congratulated for [this] splendid stud[y] which provides many keys to unlocking the work of [this] neglected, but central, mid-century Irish poet." Irish Studies Review 10 (1) 2002 "Moriarty makes a wonderful argument for Coffey as [a] writer to be reviewed, if not revived." Nua: Studies in Contemporary Irish Writing 2002 "an alternative narrative to the dominant Yeats to Heaney line. If certain voices prevail, another few years and 'Brian Coffey to Trevor Joyce' might be the better sales pitch." The Year's Work in English Studies 2002
Table of ContentsChronology of Brian Coffey; somatic rhythms; "Third Person" (1938); Coffey's method of translation; sound and metrics in "Advent" (1975) and "Death of Hector".
