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William Carleton in Retrospect: The Irish Prophecy Man
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Abstract
Ben Okri wrote (in the very different context of the execution of Ken Saro Wiwa): ‘If you want to know what is happening in an age or in a nation, find out what is happening to the writers, the town criers; for they are the seismographs that calibrate impending earthquakes in the spirits of the times.’ William Carleton is one such seismograph, charting the political, historical, and literary earthquakes of his Ireland. In his lifetime, Carleton never had to defend his right to describe Famine Ireland, as Anthony Trollope had. A ‘peasant’s son’, he was able to use his privileged access to the dying Gaelic Ireland to help originate a new Irish literature, based in and on Ireland.
Title: William Carleton in Retrospect: The Irish Prophecy Man
Description:
Abstract
Ben Okri wrote (in the very different context of the execution of Ken Saro Wiwa): ‘If you want to know what is happening in an age or in a nation, find out what is happening to the writers, the town criers; for they are the seismographs that calibrate impending earthquakes in the spirits of the times.
’ William Carleton is one such seismograph, charting the political, historical, and literary earthquakes of his Ireland.
In his lifetime, Carleton never had to defend his right to describe Famine Ireland, as Anthony Trollope had.
A ‘peasant’s son’, he was able to use his privileged access to the dying Gaelic Ireland to help originate a new Irish literature, based in and on Ireland.
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