Shibboleths of Grief: Paul Muldoon’s “The Triumph”
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18778/2083-2931.11.04Keywords:
Paul Muldoon, Ciaran Carson, elegy, contemporary Irish poetryAbstract
The essay explores Paul Muldoon’s elegy for the fellow Northern Irish poet Ciaran Carson with a view to showing that “The Triumph” seeks to evoke a ground where political, cultural and religious polarities are destabilized. As the various intertextual allusions in the poem are traced, it is argued that Muldoon seeks to revise the notion of the Irish shibboleths that, as the poem puts it, “are meant to trip you up.” In lieu of this linguistic and political slipperiness, “The Triumph” situates Carson’s protean invocations of Belfast and traditional Irish music as the new shibboleths of collectivity.
Downloads
References
Alexander, Neal. Ciaran Carson: Space, Place, Writing. Liverpool UP, 2010. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt5vjcgf
Google Scholar
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt5vjcgf
Belton, Neil. Publisher’s Note. The Star Factory, by Ciaran Carson, Head of Zeus, 2019, pp. xiii–xx.
Google Scholar
Borges, Jorge Luis. The Aleph and Other Stories: 1933-1969. Translated by Norman Thomas di Giovanni. Bantham, 1971.
Google Scholar
Carson, Ciaran. Collected Poems. Wake Forest UP, 2009.
Google Scholar
Carson, Ciaran. “Escaped from the Massacre?” The Honest Ulsterman, vol. 50, 1975, pp. 183–86.
Google Scholar
Carson, Ciaran. Fishing for Amber. Granta, 2000.
Google Scholar
Carson, Ciaran. “For All I Know: Ciaran Carson in Conversation with Elmer Kennedy-Andrews.” Ciaran Carson: Critical Essays, edited by Elmer Kennedy-Andrews, Four Courts P, 2009, pp. 13–27.
Google Scholar
Carson, Ciaran. Interview by Rand Brandes. The Irish Review, no. 8, 1990, pp. 77–90.
Google Scholar
Carson, Ciaran. Interviewed by Frank Ormsby. The Linen Hall Review, vol. 8, no. 1, 1991, pp. 5–8.
Google Scholar
Carson, Ciaran. Interviewing Ciaran Carson: María Graciela Eliggi and María Graciela Adamoli. ABEI Journal: The Brazilian Journal of Irish Studies, vol. 11, 2009, pp. 19–23. https://doi.org/10.37389/abei.v11i0.3644
Google Scholar
DOI: https://doi.org/10.37389/abei.v11i0.3644
Carson, Ciaran. Irish Traditional Music. The Appletree P, 1986.
Google Scholar
Carson, Ciaran. Last Night’s Fun. North Point P, 1998.
Google Scholar
Carson, Ciaran. “Out of the Pub and into Qub. Nick Topping Talks to Professor Ciaran Carson.” Fortnight, no. 420, 2003, pp. 16–17.
Google Scholar
Carson, Ciaran. The Star Factory. Head of Zeus, 2019.
Google Scholar
Crosson, Seán. “Performance and Music in the Poetry of Ciaran Carson.” Nordic Irish Studies, vol. 3, 2004, pp. 101–11.
Google Scholar
Edemariam, Aida. “A Life in Poetry: Ciaran Carson.” The Guardian, 17 Jan. 2009, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jan/17/poetry-ciaran-carson-belfast-ireland accessed 11 Feb. 2021.
Google Scholar
Frost, Robert. Collected Poems, Prose, and Plays. The Library of America, 1995.
Google Scholar
Haffenden, John. Viewpoints: Poets in Conversation. Faber & Faber, 1981.
Google Scholar
Heaney, Seamus. Opened Ground: Selected Poems 1966–1996. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999.
Google Scholar
Holdridge, Jefferson. The Poetry of Paul Muldoon. The Liffey P, 2008.
Google Scholar
Hufstader, Jonathan. Tongue of Water, Teeth of Stone: Northern Irish Poetry and Social Violence. The UP of Kentucky, 1999.
Google Scholar
Longley, Edna. The Living Stream: Literature and Revisionism in Ireland. Bloodaxe, 1994.
Google Scholar
Kendall, Tim. Paul Muldoon. Dufour Editions, 1996.
Google Scholar
Kendall, Tim. “Paul Muldoon’s Twins.” Paul Muldoon: Poetry, Prose, Drama, edited by Elmer Kennedy-Andrews, Colin Smythe, 2006, pp. 71–84.
Google Scholar
McCurry, Jacqueline. “‘But all the fun’s in how you say a thing’: Robert Frost and Paul Muldoon.” The Robert Frost Review, no. 8, 1998, pp. 79–92.
Google Scholar
Muldoon, Paul. “Final Testimony to the Power of Art.” The Irish Times, 20 Oct. 2019, https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/paul-muldoon-on-still-life-by-ciaran-carson-final-testimony-to-the-power-of-art-1.4051200 accessed 10 May 2021.
Google Scholar
Muldoon, Paul. Paul Muldoon in Conversation with Neil Corcoran. Paul Muldoon: Poetry, Prose, Drama, edited by Elmer Kennedy-Andrews, Colin Smythe, 2006, pp. 165–87.
Google Scholar
Muldoon, Paul. Poems 1968-1998. Faber, 2001.
Google Scholar
Muldoon, Paul. “The Triumph.” The Times Literary Supplement, 2 Feb. 2020, https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/the-triumph-paul-muldoon-poem/ accessed 25 Feb. 2021.
Google Scholar
Obert, Julia C. Postcolonial Overtures: The Politics of Sound in Contemporary Northern Irish Poetry. Syracuse UP, 2015.
Google Scholar
O’Brien, Sean. The Deregulated Muse: Essays on Contemporary British and Irish Poetry. Bloodaxe, 1998.
Google Scholar
Parker, Michael. Northern Irish Literature, 1975-2006, Volume II: The Imprint of History. Palgrave, 2007.
Google Scholar
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-64390-5
Pound, Ezra. Literary Essays of Ezra Pound. New Directions, 1968.
Google Scholar
Stainer, Jonathan. “The Possibility of Nonsectarian Futures: Emerging Disruptive Identities of Place in the Belfast of Ciaran Carson’s The Star Factory.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, vol. 23, 2005, pp. 373–94. https://doi.org/10.1068/d53j
Google Scholar
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1068/d53j
The Bible. Authorized King James Version. Oxford UP, 1998.
Google Scholar
Wheatley, David. “‘That Blank Mouth’: Secrecy, Shibboleths, and Silence in Northern Irish Poetry.” Journal of Modern Literature, vol. 25, no. 1, 2001, pp. 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1353/jml.2001.0025
Google Scholar
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2979/JML.2001.25.1.1
Wills, Clair. Reading Paul Muldoon. Bloodaxe, 1998.
Google Scholar
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
