Ireland's Love Poems

By: Jeffares, A. Norman

Book Overview

All poets share a common task: to define, to memorialize, and never to exhaust the subject of love. Ireland's Love Poems highlights one country's extraordinary poetic tradition, in both the English and Irish languages, by male and female poets, both ancient and modern. Emotions of every kind are embodied in this celebration of love's pleasures and pains, in forms ranging from complex ancient Irish ballads to forthright contemporary feminist verse. These poems consider romance in all its stages: from the thrills of young love to the commitments of marriage, from grief to amorous rebirth, from affection to idolatry. The result is a cumulative portrait of love that mirrors Irish history in its complexity.

Included in this diverse selection are Jonathan Swift, Oscar Wilde, W. B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, J. M. Synge, Samuel Beckett, Patrick Kavanagh, Thomas Kinsella, Eavan Boland, Seamus Heaney, Medbh McGuckian, Paul Muldoon, and Nuala N? Dhomhnaill.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393043169
• ISBN13: 9780393043167
• Release Date: February 2002
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.7" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

I'm lucky in love because my husband's Irish!

I bought the version with the lucky clover on the cover since I like the public library version I borrowed so much. It's handsome & beautiful, a breathtaking compilation of top notch quality works sure to make all fall in love with Ireland if they aren't yet.

Awesome Irish Love Poems

Norman Jeffares is a veteran who has written extensively on Irish writers and literary scene. He has lectured in Trinity College, Dublin and written and edited the works of Irish master writers such as Joyce, Yeats and Swift. In this book, he is sharing an awesome collection of `Irish Love Poems' with those who are not very familiar with the subject.'Love poetry' is a good catch-all to include the variety of themes associated with love. Here Jeffares includes poems dealing with love, flirtation, devotion, frustration, jealousy, marriage, celebration, pleasure, parting and many other themes associated with love. The poets who have contributed to this volume include Swift, Goldsmith, Yeats, Beckett, Wilde, Synge as well as the love poems written by Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney. Jeffares has carefully selected a sample of the young generation of emerging Irish poets as well. The anthology also includes the works of several anonymous Irish poets. I enjoyed some of the poems written by several anonymous poets. My favourite collection includes poems such as `Pulse of My Heart', `The Girl I Love', and `My Hope, My Love' and `Love is a Mortal Disease'. All the poems in this anthology are neatly placed into categories such as "Intimations, "Flirtation and `Courtship', `Prase and Devotion', `Youth, Age and Memory' and many more!You can just turn the book and compare your joy or frustration on any emotion concerning love with a group of known and unknown Irish poets who have contributed to this marvellous collection. Anyone who has either enjoyed the luxury of love or any other emotions (including pain!) attached to it must read this book. This collection of Irish love poem is a gift to the world.