The Playful Air of Light(ness) in Irish Literature and Culture

Download or read book The Playful Air of Light(ness) in Irish Literature and Culture written by Marta Goszczyńska and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2011-05-25 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While discussions in the field of Irish Studies traditionally gravitate towards themes of struggle, oppression and death, the present book originates from a contradictory impulse. Without losing sight of Ireland’s troubled history and the complexities that shape its present, it centres on instances of playfulness, light(ness) and air in Irish literature and culture. Refracted through the prism of contemporary philosophy (notably of Italo Calvino, Luce Irigaray and María Lugones), these categories serve as the basis for thirteen essays by academics from Poland, the UK, Germany and Spain. Some of these offer fresh readings of such seminal authors as W. B. Yeats, Louis MacNeice, Seamus Heaney and John Banville; others look at lesser-known figures, such as Eimar O’Duffy and Forrest Reid, who, before now, have received little scholarly attention.