From Publishers Weekly
Field Day is an affiliation of writers and poets from the North and South of Ireland, founded by the playwright Brian Friel and actor Stephen Rea. Its purpose is to present a version of Ireland's history, past and present. Under the editorship of scholar and poet Seamus Deane, 1500 years of writing by the Irish and the Anglo-Irish, in English, Latin, French and Gaelic, is here assembled. In making the selections, says Deane in his introduction, "we avoid the narrow sense of the word 'literature,' extending it to cover various other kinds of writing"--speeches and songs as well as poems, short stories, drama and excerpts from novels. Volume III is a treasure trove of modern Irish literature--everyone is here, including a few now rehabilitated as Irish poets, such as Louis MacNeice; the essays that accompany each section, even the ones on those objects of literary industry, Joyce and Beckett, manage to situate various literary accomplishments against the sweep of Irish, British and European history. Perhaps the anthology's most important achievement, when all three volumes are taken as a whole, is what Deane refers to as the "meta-narrative," in which a culture struggles against and within a colonizing presence (and language) to discover its own voice while extending the canon of the dominant literature. How this struggle was waged--in letters, in the streets, in the reaches of song--is the long, stirring testimony of this invaluable collection.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Field Day was founded in Derry in 1980 to foster the rigorous intellectual critique of cultural ideas that in Northern Ireland were of more than merely academic interest. In 1985 the group announced preparation of an anthology of Irish writers over the past 500 years that would for the first time posit a plural rather than partisan view of issues that have wracked Belfast in particular for 20 years. Today Field Day, especially for its pamphlets and theater presentations, is a European model for engaged intelligentsia; the anthology appears as a three-volume, 4000-page accretion of writing on Ireland over 1500 years. Both Field Day and its anthology are very heady projects; both succeed beyond all expectation. The emphasis here is on writing of many kinds about Ireland. And not only James Joyce and W.B. Yeats but also Cromwell and Charles II are among the authors included. And not only the usual songs and ballads but also historical and philosophical works are among the texts that appear. Editorial organization is by kind of writing. While important writers get their blocks of space, they are also likely to make cameo appearances in sections devoted to, for example, "Drama 1690-1800," "Political Writings and Speeches on Home Rule 1850-1917," or "Northern Protestant Oratory and Writings of 1791-1985." This is an element of some novelty for Norton anthologies. It derives from both contemporary critical theory and also from the impact of literary ideologies especially apparent in Ireland. The result is both state-of-the-art literary history and a genuinely fascinating reference work complete with quality introductions, headnotes, annotations, bibliographies, and index. Qualitatively and quantitatively, this is without question the mother of all Irish anthologies. --John P. Harrington, Cooper Union, New York
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
