IRISH POETRY UNDER THE UNION,

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1 IRISH POETRY UNDER THE UNION, Th is book retells the story of Irish poetry written in English between the union of Britain and Ireland in 1801 and the early years of the Irish Free State. Through careful poetic and historical analysis, Matthew Campbell offers ways to read that poetry as ruptured, musical, translated and new. The book starts with the Romantic songs and parodies of nationalist and unionist writers Moore, Mahony, Ferguson and Mangan in times of defeat, resurgence and famine. It continues with a discussion of English Victorian poets such as Tennyson, Arnold and Hopkins, who wrote Irish poems as the British Empire unravelled. Campbell s treatment ends with Yeats, seeking a new poetry emerging from under union in times of violence and civil war. The book offers both a literary history of nineteenth-century Irish poetry and a way of reading it for scholars of Irish studies as well as Romantic and Victorian literature. is Professor of Modern Literature at the University of York. He is the author of Rhythm and Will in Victorian Poetry (1999) and the editor of The Cambridge Companion to Contemporary Irish Poetry (2003).

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3 IRISH POETRY UNDER THE UNION, MATTHEW CAMPBELL University of York

4 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY , USA Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence. Information on this title: / Th is publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. Fi r s t p u b l i s h e d Printed in the United States of America A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data Campbell, Matthew (Matthew J. B.) Irish poetry under the union, /, University of York. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN (hardback) 1. English poetry Irish authors History and criticism. 2. English poetry 19th century History and criticism. 3. English poetry 20th century History and criticism. I. Title. PR8769.C dc ISBN Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

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7 Contents Acknowledgements page ix 1 The Synthetic Irish Thing 1 2 The Ruptured Ear: Irish Accent, English Poetry 21 3 From Moore to Mahony: The Transmigration of Intellect 48 4 Samuel Ferguson s Maudlin Jumble 69 5 Mangan s Golden Years 95 6 Letting the Past be Past : The English Poet and the Irish Poem Spelt from Sibyl s Leaves : Hopkins, Yeats and the Unravelling of British Poetry Violence and Measure: Yeats after Union 184 Notes 211 Bibliography 235 Index 245 vii

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9 Acknowledgements This book was conceived, written and finished with the support of the Universities of Sheffield, Notre Dame and York. I am particularly grateful for all the support I received at Sheffield, and the periods of research leave and conference support which enabled me to try out much of this material. I also received invaluable research support from the Leverhulme Foundation and the British Academy. A period as O Donnell Professor at the University of Notre Dame was vital in eventually bringing much of this material together. Ray Ryan at Cambridge University Press first saw the value in this project and stuck by it over the years. For his support many thanks are due, and to the anonymous readers who provided such helpful insights in its final stages. Earlier versions of Chapters 4 and 6 appeared in Class and the Canon, edited by Kirstie Blair and Mina Gorji, as well as in the Tennyson Research Bulletin and Victorian Literature and Culture. Parts of Chapters 4 and 7 appeared in Irish Studies Review and Bullán. I am grateful to the editors for permission to republish. Many friends and colleagues and students have helped in many ways, material as well as intellectual. I particularly wish to thank Tim Armstrong, Matthew Bevis, Kirstie Blair, Terence Brown, Rachel Buxton, Jacques Chuto, Claire Connolly, Neil Corcoran, Matthew Creasy, Roy Foster, Nicholas Grene, Eric Griffiths, John Haffenden, Hugh Haughton, Alex Houen, Daniel Karlin, Margaret Kelleher, Jim Kelly, Angela Leighton, Hamish Mathison, the late Breandan Ó Buachalla, Adrian Paterson, Michael Perraudin, Adam Piette, Adrian Poole, Justin Quinn, Christopher Ricks, Neil Roberts, Philip Roberts, Marion Shaw, Erica Sheen, Sally Shuttleworth, Jim Smyth, the late Kathleen Tillotson, and Angela Wright. Maeve Campbell and Hannah Campbell lived much of this and Paula Campbell, as ever, was always there. Valerie Cotter has read every word, many times over, and without her insight and love this book would never have been finished. This book is dedicated to Brian Campbell, lawyer, artist, existentialist-golfer, gaeilgeoir, book-lover and language lover. ix