Conor Mccarthy
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780197266144
- eISBN:
- 9780191860027
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197266144.003.0013
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
Ciaran Carson’s translations of two major medieval texts, The Inferno (2002) and The Táin(2007), are part of a broader body of translation within his work. Appearing during a decade when a number of ...
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Ciaran Carson’s translations of two major medieval texts, The Inferno (2002) and The Táin(2007), are part of a broader body of translation within his work. Appearing during a decade when a number of English-language poets turned their attention to the Middle Ages, Carson’s translations are in tune with other recent approaches in seeing affinities between his own circumstances and those of the medieval texts he translates. Carson’s approach is notable for a commitment to the formal qualities of the source texts. But these translations are also informed by Carson’s practice elsewhere, and both texts intersect with an interest in the themes of time, place, language, and translation across Carson’s broader body of work.Less
Ciaran Carson’s translations of two major medieval texts, The Inferno (2002) and The Táin(2007), are part of a broader body of translation within his work. Appearing during a decade when a number of English-language poets turned their attention to the Middle Ages, Carson’s translations are in tune with other recent approaches in seeing affinities between his own circumstances and those of the medieval texts he translates. Carson’s approach is notable for a commitment to the formal qualities of the source texts. But these translations are also informed by Carson’s practice elsewhere, and both texts intersect with an interest in the themes of time, place, language, and translation across Carson’s broader body of work.
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781846314780
- eISBN:
- 9781846316203
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/UPO9781846316203.007
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
This chapter examines the bilingual or multilingual basis for much of Ciaran Carson's work and his longstanding engagements with translation. It suggests that translation permeates Carson's works ...
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This chapter examines the bilingual or multilingual basis for much of Ciaran Carson's work and his longstanding engagements with translation. It suggests that translation permeates Carson's works texts more generally in the form of a concern with the ways in which other words, languages and cultures imply and project other worlds. It also contends that the border dialogues that Carson's translations facilitate highlight the condition of ‘ambilocation’ or ‘hyphenation’ that has become a common feature of his more recent works.Less
This chapter examines the bilingual or multilingual basis for much of Ciaran Carson's work and his longstanding engagements with translation. It suggests that translation permeates Carson's works texts more generally in the form of a concern with the ways in which other words, languages and cultures imply and project other worlds. It also contends that the border dialogues that Carson's translations facilitate highlight the condition of ‘ambilocation’ or ‘hyphenation’ that has become a common feature of his more recent works.
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781846314780
- eISBN:
- 9781846316203
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/UPO9781846316203.006
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
This chapter examines Ciaran Carson's interests in and experiments with narrative, particularly his adaptations of procedures and formulas employed in traditional Irish storytelling. It suggests that ...
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This chapter examines Ciaran Carson's interests in and experiments with narrative, particularly his adaptations of procedures and formulas employed in traditional Irish storytelling. It suggests that narrative appeals to Carson because it provides a means of shaping or patterning the chaos of experience, though he recognizes its limited capacity to impose any singular and exclusive interpretation of events. This chapter also considers the antithetical principles of connection and disconnection in Carson's poem Dresden.Less
This chapter examines Ciaran Carson's interests in and experiments with narrative, particularly his adaptations of procedures and formulas employed in traditional Irish storytelling. It suggests that narrative appeals to Carson because it provides a means of shaping or patterning the chaos of experience, though he recognizes its limited capacity to impose any singular and exclusive interpretation of events. This chapter also considers the antithetical principles of connection and disconnection in Carson's poem Dresden.
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781846314780
- eISBN:
- 9781846316203
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/UPO9781846316203.001
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
This introductory chapter discusses the theme of this volume which is about the representation of place and space in the works of Irish author Ciaran Carson. This volume provides a comprehensive ...
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This introductory chapter discusses the theme of this volume which is about the representation of place and space in the works of Irish author Ciaran Carson. This volume provides a comprehensive analysis of all of Carson's work to date including poetry, prose, and translation, with the objective of identifying the recurrent themes manifested across his oeuvre and in the different genres in which he writes. It also considers the irreducible particularity and eccentricity of his individual texts.Less
This introductory chapter discusses the theme of this volume which is about the representation of place and space in the works of Irish author Ciaran Carson. This volume provides a comprehensive analysis of all of Carson's work to date including poetry, prose, and translation, with the objective of identifying the recurrent themes manifested across his oeuvre and in the different genres in which he writes. It also considers the irreducible particularity and eccentricity of his individual texts.
Daniel Weston
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781846318641
- eISBN:
- 9781846318061
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781846318641.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
Ciaran Carson is increasingly recognised as a poet of place, of the city, and specifically of Belfast. However, Carson's work is also permeated by the Northern Irish Troubles in thoroughgoing ways. ...
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Ciaran Carson is increasingly recognised as a poet of place, of the city, and specifically of Belfast. However, Carson's work is also permeated by the Northern Irish Troubles in thoroughgoing ways. This essay elucidates the ways in which his poetry of place and his spatial poetics have developed in response to a particular set of historical circumstances and sectarian geographies. In contradistinction to the landscape of checkpoints and the static identities they enforce upon Belfast's inhabitants, Carson interrogates mapping processes to reveal the multitude of perspectives present in what is, for him, a polyvalent and indeterminate city. If the authority of the map is discredited in Ciaran Carson's poetry – particularly in The Irish for No (1987) and Belfast Confetti (1989) – the labyrinth is offered as an alternative model for a dynamic, open rendering of space.Less
Ciaran Carson is increasingly recognised as a poet of place, of the city, and specifically of Belfast. However, Carson's work is also permeated by the Northern Irish Troubles in thoroughgoing ways. This essay elucidates the ways in which his poetry of place and his spatial poetics have developed in response to a particular set of historical circumstances and sectarian geographies. In contradistinction to the landscape of checkpoints and the static identities they enforce upon Belfast's inhabitants, Carson interrogates mapping processes to reveal the multitude of perspectives present in what is, for him, a polyvalent and indeterminate city. If the authority of the map is discredited in Ciaran Carson's poetry – particularly in The Irish for No (1987) and Belfast Confetti (1989) – the labyrinth is offered as an alternative model for a dynamic, open rendering of space.
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781846314780
- eISBN:
- 9781846316203
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/UPO9781846316203.002
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
This chapter discusses a critical framework and recent paradigms for the study of space and place advanced in the fields of geography and cultural theory that will be used in the analysis of Ciaran ...
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This chapter discusses a critical framework and recent paradigms for the study of space and place advanced in the fields of geography and cultural theory that will be used in the analysis of Ciaran Carson's works. It considers the fluid critical formulations for literary geography and suggests that the singularity of Carson's writing rests upon his far-reaching imaginative engagements with ideas of space and place, and particularly urban spatiality in an Irish context. It also mentions that Carson's creative re-imagination of the cultural materials the city provides is exemplified in his poem Belfast.Less
This chapter discusses a critical framework and recent paradigms for the study of space and place advanced in the fields of geography and cultural theory that will be used in the analysis of Ciaran Carson's works. It considers the fluid critical formulations for literary geography and suggests that the singularity of Carson's writing rests upon his far-reaching imaginative engagements with ideas of space and place, and particularly urban spatiality in an Irish context. It also mentions that Carson's creative re-imagination of the cultural materials the city provides is exemplified in his poem Belfast.
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781846314780
- eISBN:
- 9781846316203
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/UPO9781846316203.003
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
This chapter analyses the mapping of urban space, particularly Belfast, in the works of Ciaran Carson. It highlights the recurrent appearance of maps in Carson's representations of Belfast which are ...
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This chapter analyses the mapping of urban space, particularly Belfast, in the works of Ciaran Carson. It highlights the recurrent appearance of maps in Carson's representations of Belfast which are often considered with suspicions because of their complicity with the territorial prescriptions of vested interests. It discusses the dialectic functions of maps and mapping in Carson's work and argues that his self-conscious meta-cartography represents an attempt to the ‘deterritorialisation’ and ‘reterritorialisation’ of Belfast.Less
This chapter analyses the mapping of urban space, particularly Belfast, in the works of Ciaran Carson. It highlights the recurrent appearance of maps in Carson's representations of Belfast which are often considered with suspicions because of their complicity with the territorial prescriptions of vested interests. It discusses the dialectic functions of maps and mapping in Carson's work and argues that his self-conscious meta-cartography represents an attempt to the ‘deterritorialisation’ and ‘reterritorialisation’ of Belfast.
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781846314780
- eISBN:
- 9781846316203
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/UPO9781846316203.004
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
This chapter examines the politics and poetics implied by bodies moving through space in the works of Ciaran Carson. It suggests that Carson considers walking in the city as something that implies ...
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This chapter examines the politics and poetics implied by bodies moving through space in the works of Ciaran Carson. It suggests that Carson considers walking in the city as something that implies utopian spatial politics through which resistance to various forms of socio-spatial regulation might be both imagined and effected. It discusses the surveillance and policing of movements in Belfast and argues that Carson also uses the trope of walking in the city as a resistant spatial practice entailing the mobile and often subversive circulation of citizens within the regulated precincts of urban space.Less
This chapter examines the politics and poetics implied by bodies moving through space in the works of Ciaran Carson. It suggests that Carson considers walking in the city as something that implies utopian spatial politics through which resistance to various forms of socio-spatial regulation might be both imagined and effected. It discusses the surveillance and policing of movements in Belfast and argues that Carson also uses the trope of walking in the city as a resistant spatial practice entailing the mobile and often subversive circulation of citizens within the regulated precincts of urban space.
Conor McCarthy
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474455930
- eISBN:
- 9781474480628
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474455930.003.0007
- Subject:
- Law, Philosophy of Law
This chapter examines themes of surveillance, uncertainty, identity, and political violence in the work of Ciaran Carson. If Carson's Belfast poems, written during the Northern Ireland Troubles, have ...
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This chapter examines themes of surveillance, uncertainty, identity, and political violence in the work of Ciaran Carson. If Carson's Belfast poems, written during the Northern Ireland Troubles, have something of a journalistic aspect, they also contain the motifs of surveillance and interrogation paired with uncertainty and doubt. Carson revisits some of these themes in three post-Troubles works. The mirroring sonnet sequences of For All We Know play with the archetypes of spy narrative. The poems are full of dressing up, disguising, cross-dressing, but when you take on a false identity, these poems ask, who are you then? What does uncertainty mean in the aftermath of conflict, when so many unanswered questions remain? And in the context of so many false witnesses, where might truth, or justice, be found? In The Pen Friend, both the realities and possibilities of collusion between security forces and paramilitaries during the Northern Ireland Troubles find an echo in the explosion at the heart of Carson’s novel. Finally, Exchange Place gives us a fantastical take on surveillance, uncertainty, and questions of identity, with a whiff of espionage, in a novel that leaves us, again, with unanswered questions.Less
This chapter examines themes of surveillance, uncertainty, identity, and political violence in the work of Ciaran Carson. If Carson's Belfast poems, written during the Northern Ireland Troubles, have something of a journalistic aspect, they also contain the motifs of surveillance and interrogation paired with uncertainty and doubt. Carson revisits some of these themes in three post-Troubles works. The mirroring sonnet sequences of For All We Know play with the archetypes of spy narrative. The poems are full of dressing up, disguising, cross-dressing, but when you take on a false identity, these poems ask, who are you then? What does uncertainty mean in the aftermath of conflict, when so many unanswered questions remain? And in the context of so many false witnesses, where might truth, or justice, be found? In The Pen Friend, both the realities and possibilities of collusion between security forces and paramilitaries during the Northern Ireland Troubles find an echo in the explosion at the heart of Carson’s novel. Finally, Exchange Place gives us a fantastical take on surveillance, uncertainty, and questions of identity, with a whiff of espionage, in a novel that leaves us, again, with unanswered questions.
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781846314780
- eISBN:
- 9781846316203
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/UPO9781846316203.005
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
This chapter analyzes the role of place and memory in the works of Ciaran Carson. It suggests that Carson uses memory as a mode of consolation and it also serves as an organ of retrieval and ...
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This chapter analyzes the role of place and memory in the works of Ciaran Carson. It suggests that Carson uses memory as a mode of consolation and it also serves as an organ of retrieval and reclamation that implicitly upbraids the procedures of official historiography. It explains that through this process, Belfast emerges as a palimpsest of memories elaborated in time and space in the works of Carson.Less
This chapter analyzes the role of place and memory in the works of Ciaran Carson. It suggests that Carson uses memory as a mode of consolation and it also serves as an organ of retrieval and reclamation that implicitly upbraids the procedures of official historiography. It explains that through this process, Belfast emerges as a palimpsest of memories elaborated in time and space in the works of Carson.
Neal Alexander
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781846314780
- eISBN:
- 9781846316203
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/UPO9781846316203
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
Ciaran Carson is one of the most challenging and inventive of contemporary Irish writers, exhibiting verbal brilliance, formal complexity and intellectual daring across a remarkably varied body of ...
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Ciaran Carson is one of the most challenging and inventive of contemporary Irish writers, exhibiting verbal brilliance, formal complexity and intellectual daring across a remarkably varied body of work. This study considers the full range of his oeuvre, in poetry, prose and translations, and discusses the major themes to which he returns, including: memory and history, narrative, language and translation, mapping, violence and power. It argues that the singularity of Carson's writing is to be found in his radical imaginative engagements with ideas of space and place. The city of Belfast, in particular, occupies a crucially important place in his texts, serving as an imaginative focal point around which his many other concerns are constellated. The city, in all its volatile mutability, is an abiding frame of reference and a reservoir of creative impetus for Carson's imagination. Accordingly, the book adopts an interdisciplinary approach that draws upon geography, urbanism, and cultural theory as well as literary criticism.Less
Ciaran Carson is one of the most challenging and inventive of contemporary Irish writers, exhibiting verbal brilliance, formal complexity and intellectual daring across a remarkably varied body of work. This study considers the full range of his oeuvre, in poetry, prose and translations, and discusses the major themes to which he returns, including: memory and history, narrative, language and translation, mapping, violence and power. It argues that the singularity of Carson's writing is to be found in his radical imaginative engagements with ideas of space and place. The city of Belfast, in particular, occupies a crucially important place in his texts, serving as an imaginative focal point around which his many other concerns are constellated. The city, in all its volatile mutability, is an abiding frame of reference and a reservoir of creative impetus for Carson's imagination. Accordingly, the book adopts an interdisciplinary approach that draws upon geography, urbanism, and cultural theory as well as literary criticism.
Matthew Reynolds
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199605712
- eISBN:
- 9780191731617
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199605712.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
The metaphors adopted by poetic translators often turn out to have a root in the poem that is being translated: Pound thinks of himself as bringing Propertius ‘to life’ because the Propertius poems ...
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The metaphors adopted by poetic translators often turn out to have a root in the poem that is being translated: Pound thinks of himself as bringing Propertius ‘to life’ because the Propertius poems he translates have to do with life after death; Pope thinks of translation as the preservation of ‘fire’ because there is much fire, both literal and metaphorical, in the Iliad. Dryden thinks of himself as ‘opening’ Virgil through translation because he sees the Aeneid as showing how fate is opened into history. I give examples from contemporary poem‐translations by Ciaran Carson and Michael Hofmann. This interactive relationship between source and translation can sometimes happen with prose and drama (I give examples from Natasha Randall and Tony Harrison) but, it flourishes best in poetry. It creates the ‘poetry of translation’—an art form in which translation continues and reflects upon the imaginative activity of the source.Less
The metaphors adopted by poetic translators often turn out to have a root in the poem that is being translated: Pound thinks of himself as bringing Propertius ‘to life’ because the Propertius poems he translates have to do with life after death; Pope thinks of translation as the preservation of ‘fire’ because there is much fire, both literal and metaphorical, in the Iliad. Dryden thinks of himself as ‘opening’ Virgil through translation because he sees the Aeneid as showing how fate is opened into history. I give examples from contemporary poem‐translations by Ciaran Carson and Michael Hofmann. This interactive relationship between source and translation can sometimes happen with prose and drama (I give examples from Natasha Randall and Tony Harrison) but, it flourishes best in poetry. It creates the ‘poetry of translation’—an art form in which translation continues and reflects upon the imaginative activity of the source.
David-Antoine Williams
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- June 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780198812470
- eISBN:
- 9780191892585
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198812470.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
This chapter begins by noting with Saussure that the rupture structural linguistics makes between sound image and referent would appear to make etymology theoretically vacant. How one might continue ...
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This chapter begins by noting with Saussure that the rupture structural linguistics makes between sound image and referent would appear to make etymology theoretically vacant. How one might continue to ‘believe’ in the truth of etymologies in the face of this occupies the rest of the discussion, beginning with the problems and possibilities of phenomenological ‘unveiling’ (Martin Heidegger, Anne Carson, Jan Zwicky, and Anne Waldman are discussed) and deconstructive etymological word play (Jean Paulhan, Nancy Streuver, Derek Attridge, Paula Blank). Play, or work, with etymology then frames a comparative reading of poems by G. M. Hopkins and Ciaran Carson, which explores questions of poetic assertion, belief, and irony. After sketching a taxonomy of etymological tropes in modern poetry, the chapter concludes by following the etymological development and redeployment of central metapoetic metaphors, which imagine the work of poetry as that of maker, weaver, singer, and ploughman.Less
This chapter begins by noting with Saussure that the rupture structural linguistics makes between sound image and referent would appear to make etymology theoretically vacant. How one might continue to ‘believe’ in the truth of etymologies in the face of this occupies the rest of the discussion, beginning with the problems and possibilities of phenomenological ‘unveiling’ (Martin Heidegger, Anne Carson, Jan Zwicky, and Anne Waldman are discussed) and deconstructive etymological word play (Jean Paulhan, Nancy Streuver, Derek Attridge, Paula Blank). Play, or work, with etymology then frames a comparative reading of poems by G. M. Hopkins and Ciaran Carson, which explores questions of poetic assertion, belief, and irony. After sketching a taxonomy of etymological tropes in modern poetry, the chapter concludes by following the etymological development and redeployment of central metapoetic metaphors, which imagine the work of poetry as that of maker, weaver, singer, and ploughman.
Nicholas Allen
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- July 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198795155
- eISBN:
- 9780191836503
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198795155.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
The idea of the coast as a significant cultural space has been understudied in literary criticism as it relates to Ireland. The dynamics of Irish nationalism have marginalized liminal forms of ...
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The idea of the coast as a significant cultural space has been understudied in literary criticism as it relates to Ireland. The dynamics of Irish nationalism have marginalized liminal forms of historical affiliation, a tendency that has obscured those geographical zones that sit in the middle distance between land and sea. This chapter reads recent prose by Kevin Barry, Ciaran Carson, and Glenn Patterson in the context of imperial and maritime history. It explores the intimacy between the literary representation of the island and cultural forms of self-governance, which take particular charge in a culture that, like Ireland, has experienced the long receding wave of empire as violence, partition, and persisting disputes over identity. The flotsam and jetsam of the old empire washed up on an island that turned its back on the sea. Carson, Patterson, and Barry have taken these fragmentary forms to mould new literary works.Less
The idea of the coast as a significant cultural space has been understudied in literary criticism as it relates to Ireland. The dynamics of Irish nationalism have marginalized liminal forms of historical affiliation, a tendency that has obscured those geographical zones that sit in the middle distance between land and sea. This chapter reads recent prose by Kevin Barry, Ciaran Carson, and Glenn Patterson in the context of imperial and maritime history. It explores the intimacy between the literary representation of the island and cultural forms of self-governance, which take particular charge in a culture that, like Ireland, has experienced the long receding wave of empire as violence, partition, and persisting disputes over identity. The flotsam and jetsam of the old empire washed up on an island that turned its back on the sea. Carson, Patterson, and Barry have taken these fragmentary forms to mould new literary works.
Conor McCarthy
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474455930
- eISBN:
- 9781474480628
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474455930.001.0001
- Subject:
- Law, Philosophy of Law
Outlawry and espionage would seem to be quite different phenomena, rarely discussed together. This book argues that they have something in common - that both involve exclusion from law. Challenging ...
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Outlawry and espionage would seem to be quite different phenomena, rarely discussed together. This book argues that they have something in common - that both involve exclusion from law. Challenging previous readings that view outlawry as a now-superseded historical phenomenon, and outlaws as figures of popular resistance, this book argues that legal exclusion is a longstanding and enduring means of supporting state power. Through close analysis of the literatures of outlawry and espionage, this book reads legal exclusion as a key theme in writing about outlaws and spies from the Middle Ages to the present day, arguing that literature plays an important role in representing and critiquing exclusion from law. The discussion draws on the work of Giorgio Agamben, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida and Eric Hobsbawm, and engages with a range of primary legal texts from the Middle Ages to the present day. Literary works discussed range from the medieval Robin Hood ballads, Shakespeare’s history plays, and versions of the Ned Kelly story, to contemporary writing by John le Carré, Don DeLillo, Ciaran Carson and William Gibson.Less
Outlawry and espionage would seem to be quite different phenomena, rarely discussed together. This book argues that they have something in common - that both involve exclusion from law. Challenging previous readings that view outlawry as a now-superseded historical phenomenon, and outlaws as figures of popular resistance, this book argues that legal exclusion is a longstanding and enduring means of supporting state power. Through close analysis of the literatures of outlawry and espionage, this book reads legal exclusion as a key theme in writing about outlaws and spies from the Middle Ages to the present day, arguing that literature plays an important role in representing and critiquing exclusion from law. The discussion draws on the work of Giorgio Agamben, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida and Eric Hobsbawm, and engages with a range of primary legal texts from the Middle Ages to the present day. Literary works discussed range from the medieval Robin Hood ballads, Shakespeare’s history plays, and versions of the Ned Kelly story, to contemporary writing by John le Carré, Don DeLillo, Ciaran Carson and William Gibson.
Fiona Stafford
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- July 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198795155
- eISBN:
- 9780191836503
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198795155.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
This chapter considers the places where rivers meet the sea, and the imaginative, anthropomorphic impulses evident in the language of confluence. In particular, it focuses on the Solway Firth, and ...
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This chapter considers the places where rivers meet the sea, and the imaginative, anthropomorphic impulses evident in the language of confluence. In particular, it focuses on the Solway Firth, and its peculiar situation as a border between England and Scotland, opening towards the Isle of Man, Ireland, Wales, and the rest of the world. The purpose of the regional focus is to show the constant interaction of history and geography and the associated shifts in understanding the coast. Taking its cue from John Ruskin’s claim for the international importance of the Solway, the chapter explores Ruskin’s own attachment to the area, magnified as it was by Scott, Burns, and Wordsworth. It goes on to consider Ciaran Carson’s thoughtful response to Ruskin’s description in Praeterita, when Carson imagines Ruskin crossing the Irish Sea to encounter modern Belfast.Less
This chapter considers the places where rivers meet the sea, and the imaginative, anthropomorphic impulses evident in the language of confluence. In particular, it focuses on the Solway Firth, and its peculiar situation as a border between England and Scotland, opening towards the Isle of Man, Ireland, Wales, and the rest of the world. The purpose of the regional focus is to show the constant interaction of history and geography and the associated shifts in understanding the coast. Taking its cue from John Ruskin’s claim for the international importance of the Solway, the chapter explores Ruskin’s own attachment to the area, magnified as it was by Scott, Burns, and Wordsworth. It goes on to consider Ciaran Carson’s thoughtful response to Ruskin’s description in Praeterita, when Carson imagines Ruskin crossing the Irish Sea to encounter modern Belfast.