Poets & Courts: Celtic Literature c.1150-1400

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This module will examine the literary culture of Ireland and Scotland in the transitional period before, during and after the coming of the Normans. A key text is the most skilfully wrought long prose work in Irish from this period, namely Acallam na Senórach (Tales of the Elders of Ireland), a frame-tale containing some 160 stories told in prose and verse. It is perhaps the high point of Gaelic literary culture before Norman influence becomes pervasive. The twelfth century in Ireland witnessed the changeover from monastic to secular schools, a new professionalization of poetry-making, and the perfecting of syllabic metres which had been in use for some 500 years. The work of exemplary Gaelic poets such as Muireadhach Albanach Ó Dálaigh and Gofraidh Fionn Ó Dálaigh will also be studied (in translation).