Book chapter 929 views
‘The Later Poetry and its Critical Reception’, in Stan Smith, ed., Patrick Kavanagh: A Revaluation
John Goodby
Pages: 121 - 144
Swansea University Author: John Goodby
Abstract
Explores Kavanagh's later poetry in terms of its dynamic of continuously repudiating its earlier phases. Defines the critical responses broadly as that represented by Edna Longley (Kavanagh as beneficial mediator of the poisoned chalice of Irishness and modernism to successors such as Kennelly,...
| Published: |
Dublin / Portland
Irish Academic Press
2009
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| URI: | https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa331 |
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| Abstract: |
Explores Kavanagh's later poetry in terms of its dynamic of continuously repudiating its earlier phases. Defines the critical responses broadly as that represented by Edna Longley (Kavanagh as beneficial mediator of the poisoned chalice of Irishness and modernism to successors such as Kennelly, Durcan, Heaney and Muldoon) and nationalist critics such as Declan Kiberd and Seamus Deane (for whom Kavanagh is over-rated), placing these in the context of a recention defined by the Northern Troubles, and limited but useful attempts to get around this by the likes of Michael O'Loughlin and Seamus Heaney. The main argument is that Kavanagh's poetry is an unstable blend of high and low materials, from eighteenth century neo-classicism to kisch Revivalism, mid-century realism to proto-Beat afflatus, and that this 'Parnassian hybridity' is his defining characteristic. The chapter takes issue with Michael Allen's reading of 'Lines Written on a Seat on the Grand Canal, Dublin', which is seen as limited by a New Critical desire for realism and organic integrity, and celebrate the brittle stylistic triumph of such pieces and the high-wire act it entailed. The chapter concludes by reading Kavanagh's fascination for ballad and song in terms of David Lloyd's account of the hybrid quality of popular literary forms, which constantly exceeds the monologic desire of cultural nationalism, just as they do the yearning for closure and integritas evinced by Allen and Longley. |
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| Keywords: |
Kavanagh, nationalism, Parnassus, classicism, Revival, epic, Beats, not-caring, hybrid, mythology, Heaney, Colum |
| College: |
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Start Page: |
121 |
| End Page: |
144 |