Description
An Open Access edition of this book is available on the Liverpool University Press website and the OAPEN library.
Ciaran Carson is one of the most challenging and inventive of contemporary Irish writers, exhibiting verbal brilliance, formal complexity, and intellectual daring across a remarkably varied body of work. This study considers the full range of his oeuvre, in poetry, prose, and translations, and discusses the major themes to which he returns, including: memory and history, narrative, language and translation, mapping, violence, and power. It argues that the singularity of Carson's writing is to be found in his radical imaginative engagements with ideas of space and place. The city of Belfast, in particular, occupies a crucially important place in his texts, serving as an imaginative focal point around which his many other concerns are constellated. The city, in all its volatile mutability, is an abiding frame of reference and a reservoir of creative impetus for Carson's imagination. Accordingly, the book adopts an interdisciplinary approach that draws upon geography, urbanism, and cultural theory as well as literary criticism. It provides both a stimulating and thorough introduction to Carson's work, and a flexible critical framework for exploring literary representations of space.
* The first book-length study of this innovative, award-winning writer's work. * Considers the full range of Carson's oeuvre, including poetry, prose, and translations. * Develops an interdisciplinary critical approach to literary representations of space.
About the Author
Dr Neal Alexander lectures in English at the University of Nottingham. He is the co-editor (with Shane Murphy and Anne Oakman) of 'To the Other Shore: Cross-currents in Irish and Scottish Studies' (Queen's University Belfast, 2004).
Reviews
'This book will be of interest to scholars of Irish literature and politics, as well those interested in the growing field of the interactions between literature and geography. It is, furthermore, a book that marks the continuing relevance of the spatial turn in literary theory and the theoretical turn in Irish studies.'
Review of English Studies
'Through its comprehensive coverage of Carson's proliferating oeuvre, its meticulous research and carefully nuanced argumentation, Ciaran Carson: Space, Place, Writing makes a significant contribution to the consolidation and development of theoretical and critical thinking about Carson in particular, and contemporary Northern Ireland poetry more generally.'
Elmer Kennedy-Andrews
'The introduction offers a great deal of useful background information that will be beneficial for those new to Carson. Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.'
Choice
'Alexander's book, judiciously focused, thoroughly researched and finely produced, has set an agenda for future critical discussion of Carson.'
Peter Denman, Irish Studies Review, 20.2
Book Information
ISBN 9781846314780
Author Neal Alexander
Format Hardback
Page Count 237
Imprint Liverpool University Press
Publisher Liverpool University Press
Ciaran Carson is one of the most challenging and inventive of contemporary Irish writers, exhibiting verbal brilliance, formal complexity, and intellectual daring across a remarkably varied body of work. This study considers the full range of his oeuvre, in poetry, prose, and translations, and discusses the major themes to which he returns, including: memory and history, narrative, language and translation, mapping, violence, and power. It argues that the singularity of Carson's writing is to be found in his radical imaginative engagements with ideas of space and place. The city of Belfast, in particular, occupies a crucially important place in his texts, serving as an imaginative focal point around which his many other concerns are constellated. The city, in all its volatile mutability, is an abiding frame of reference and a reservoir of creative impetus for Carson's imagination. Accordingly, the book adopts an interdisciplinary approach that draws upon geography, urbanism, and cultural theory as well as literary criticism. It provides both a stimulating and thorough introduction to Carson's work, and a flexible critical framework for exploring literary representations of space.
* The first book-length study of this innovative, award-winning writer's work. * Considers the full range of Carson's oeuvre, including poetry, prose, and translations. * Develops an interdisciplinary critical approach to literary representations of space.
About the Author
Dr Neal Alexander lectures in English at the University of Nottingham. He is the co-editor (with Shane Murphy and Anne Oakman) of 'To the Other Shore: Cross-currents in Irish and Scottish Studies' (Queen's University Belfast, 2004).
Reviews
'This book will be of interest to scholars of Irish literature and politics, as well those interested in the growing field of the interactions between literature and geography. It is, furthermore, a book that marks the continuing relevance of the spatial turn in literary theory and the theoretical turn in Irish studies.'
Review of English Studies
'Through its comprehensive coverage of Carson's proliferating oeuvre, its meticulous research and carefully nuanced argumentation, Ciaran Carson: Space, Place, Writing makes a significant contribution to the consolidation and development of theoretical and critical thinking about Carson in particular, and contemporary Northern Ireland poetry more generally.'
Elmer Kennedy-Andrews
'The introduction offers a great deal of useful background information that will be beneficial for those new to Carson. Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.'
Choice
'Alexander's book, judiciously focused, thoroughly researched and finely produced, has set an agenda for future critical discussion of Carson.'
Peter Denman, Irish Studies Review, 20.2
Book Information
ISBN 9781846314780
Author Neal Alexander
Format Hardback
Page Count 237
Imprint Liverpool University Press
Publisher Liverpool University Press
