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COPYRIGHT 2000 Indiana University, Purdue University of Fort Wayne
Out of What Began: A History of Irish Poetry in English. By Gregory A. Schirmer. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998. xvi + 426 pages.
There are many fine studies of individual Irish poets, some of groups of poets, movements, and periods. What has been lacking, until now, has been a comprehensive overview of the history of Irish poetry. Gregory Schirmer heroically undertakes to correct that shortcoming in Out of What Began, his admirable, largely even-handed, and broad discussion. Even at such length, however, limits must be set: his is a study of Irish poetry in English. To include poetry in Gaelic would make the scope too vast, the work too unwieldy, although Schirmer's familiarity with that field comes through in his occasional, necessary references to Gaelic-language poets.
The great majority of work done in Irish poetry has focused on the twentieth century, and probably for good reason. The age of William Butler Yeats, Louis MacNeice, Patrick Kavanagh, Thomas Kinsella, Seamus Heaney, Eavan Boland, and company has been tremendously exciting and varied. Indeed, those six names can scarcely be mentioned in the same sentence as having anything in common except epoch. Schirmer does an admirable job of working his way through this last century of poetry, providing historical and literary contexts for the major movements and minor figures of the period....
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