Robin Flowers, Oxford University Press, London, 1963 (1947).
This is a charming introduction to Irish literature told in a delightful prose style. It begins (pp. 1-23) with "The Founding of the Tradition". This shows the Irish love of learning, history and tradition from very early records. It mentions oral tradition and then:
The old Irish society was organized upon an intensely aristocratic basis, and, like all aristocratic societies, set great store by those memories of past achievement which feed the pride and enhance the prestige of a dominant class. The function of the poets was to keep alive this long-descended record in its full detail of genealogy and varied incident. It was inevitable that, when this mnemonic tradition met the latin tradition of writing, it should be fixed in the new form which offered a greater guarantee of permanence. pp. 3-4
He mentions Cenn Faelad.
The tradition of Cenn Faelad and his nephew Aldfrid justifies us in assuming that the vernacular was actively cultivated for literary purposes in Ireland about the middle of the seventh century. p. 13
He mentions such figures as Colman whose work suggests Irish was written down by 600 C.E. and Cenn Faelad:
He is the first poet quoted in the Annals, and the historical verses attributed to him all relate to his own kindred of the Northern Ui Naill. He is given the title sapiens in the texts, a technical term meaning a head teacher or professor in the monastic schools. p. 11
The second chapter "Exiles and Hermits" (pp. 24-66) begins by quoting "I and Pangur Ban my cat".
It is the first example we have in manuscript of the personal poetry of the Irish, and it is very characteristic that the verses should be concerned with the antics of a scholar's cat. p. 24
He also quotes a eulogy of:
Aed son of Diarmait son of Muiredach. This is among our earliest examples of panagyrical poetry so inordinately developed by the later bards...In this poem -- perhaps of the eighth century -- the Irish panagyrical style which was to rule for nearly ten centuries is already formed. pp. 27-28
He considers Moling and Sedulius, Columcille and a poem, "That shows at least what poetry the eleventh century expected from a poet of the seventh." p. 31
He relates tales of the holy men and animals and, of couse, poems about birds.
The Irish, indeed, could not imagine an earthly or a heavenly paradise, a pagan or a Christian Elysium, that did not echo with the voices of birds calling to the hours. p. 62
Chapter Three, "The Rise of the Bardic Order" (pp. 67-93), begins with a letter from a Twelfth Century bishop asking for Mac Lonain's work. Flowers calls Mac Lomain:
The first professional poet of Ireland of whom we have any definite tradition, and it is to him and to his followers in the tenth century, Mac Liag and Mac Coisse, that the later bards look back as to their great exemplars. p. 68
He relates tales of Fland, mentions the absence of poets in the Annals, that poets wandered the country, that writing came from Christianity and monasteries and that saints' lives normally presented the poets unfavourably -- somewhat understandably considering such poetic compositions as "The Vision of Mac Con Glinne". He proceeds to the manuscript tradition, to the outstanding religious poet Donnchadh Mor O Dalaigh and quotes one of his poems ("Wrens of the lake, I love them all" p. 80), mentions the involvement of the state in Late Medieval Irish poetry and examines the influence of hereditary literary families.
The O'Mulconrys, the O'Clerys, and the O'Duignans were the chief transmitters of the historical and genealogical tradition. The O'Mulconrys and the O'Duignans were of the families of Westmeath whose chief monastery was Clonmacnoise, while the O'Clerys came from the district of Hy Many, on the other bank of the Shannon, which also acknowledged Clonmacnoise as its patron house. The law scribes of medieval Ireland were the MacEgans, also of Hy Many, whose chief seat was in northern Tipperary on the shores of Loch Derg. The O'Dalys, the chief poetic clan, were again of the peoples of Westmeath. p. 85
He continues with references to the influence of Brian Boru.
Chapter Four, "The Bardic Heritage" (pp. 94-106) states such poems were basically the same in form and outlook for half a millennium, acknowledges the work of Bergin, Quiggin, Knott and Father Lambert MacKenna, mentions the surviving poem-books from aristocratic families and collections written down by those who fled Ireland in the 17th Century. He relates Thomas O'Sullivan's account of a bardic school and poetic composition.
...the students gathered in some remote place far from the resort of people, and worked in a large structure divided up into cubicles each furnished with a bed, lying upon which in complete darkness they composed their poems on themes set by the master. The poem composed, lights were brought and they wrote it down and presented it to the masters for criticism in the main place of assembly. p. 96
After seven years of such study (from November to March) the student would become an ollave and seek to serve a lord. Robin Flowers speaks next of manuscripts, of recasting the traditions, including those of Fionn mac Cumaill, of the bardic flavour of "The Colloquy of the Ancient Men" and the survival of the oral tradition.
Chapter Five, "Ireland and Medieval Europe" (pp. 107-141) mentions external influence on Irish literature, dismisses the popular image evoked by the term Celtic and considers the introduction of religious orders and the entrance of the Normans into Ireland. Flowers mentions the strength of the Irish language and the movement of scholars.
The literary men of medieval Ireland were no stay-at-homes, they passed readily from the house of one chieftain to another, from monastery to monastery, and appear to have both spoken and written one literary dialect. This is true even of Scotland, which through the whole medieval period was in literary matters entirely under Irish domination. p. 124
Religious literature is discussed and the translation into Irish of some travelogues (of Sir John Mandeville and of Marco Polo) mentioned. He turns to Arthurian tales, the Charlemagne cycle and Classical Latin literature.
Excellent versions of the tale of Troy, the AENEID, Lucan's PHARSALIA and Statius' THEBAID were made towards the end of the twelfth century. p. 137
Chapter Six, "Love's Bitter Sweet (pp. 142-164) considers courtly love, though:
The poems we possess are mostly of a comparatively late date, of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. p. 143
He then discusses such poetry from the Fourteenth Century forward, written by such lords as the Fitzgeralds. He observes:
So that we have the remarkable fact (but in Irish literature it is not remarkable), that poems written at either end of a period of between 300 and 400 years strike upon our ear with the effect of contemporary compositions. This is of course due to the condition of the bardic schools which were a sort of conservative trade union, hedging poetry about with rules and restrictions. p. 152
There is his touching suggestion that a poem referring to a wife leaving her husband (printed here in both Irish and English translation) has done so in dying. The chapter contains other verse in both languages and Flowers continues his sensitive treatment of a literature whose precious nature he conveys so well.
Chapter Seven, "The End of the Tradition" (pp. 165-173) presents the flight of the earls, opposition to the education of Catholics and efforts in Europe to preserve Irish literature. He portrays Louvain:
The streets of Louvain must have presented a strange spectacle at this time. The little university town was full of the Irish, friars and nobles and poets and scholars, jostling one another and exchanging the last news from home. Many poems written there still survive and show us to what straits the poets were reduced, shivering in poverty after the comfort and consideration which their art had always been able to buy for them in Ireland. p. 170
On the book's last page its author pens:
We have seen for more than ten centuries king, monk, and poet preparing and preserving that tradition the history of which is a true history of Irish literature. The poets shared in all their country's fortunes and fell with its fall. p. 173
This splendid treatise by a gifted writer will reward all who read it.