Invoking Beckett: Samuel Beckett’s legacy in Northern Irish poetry
Contemporary Northern Irish poets have repeatedly, even obsessively, invoked Samuel Beckett’s name in their work, from Paul Muldoon’s mock-heroic ‘His Nibs Sam Bethicket’ and Derek Mahon’s ‘Beckett’s bleak reductio’, through Leontia Flynn’s grotesque blazon of Beckett’s ‘palpitations, panic attacks,...
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| Format: | Book section |
| Language: | English |
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Cambridge University Press
2022
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| _version_ | 1797111669010202624 |
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| author | Simpson, H |
| author2 | Brophy, J |
| author_facet | Brophy, J Simpson, H |
| author_sort | Simpson, H |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | Contemporary Northern Irish poets have repeatedly, even obsessively, invoked Samuel Beckett’s name in their work, from Paul Muldoon’s mock-heroic ‘His Nibs Sam Bethicket’ and Derek Mahon’s ‘Beckett’s bleak reductio’, through Leontia Flynn’s grotesque blazon of Beckett’s ‘palpitations, panic attacks, diarrhoea’ and Padraic Fiacc’s assurance that ‘Beckett welcomes you to Paris’, to Howard’s Wright’s foul-mouthed ‘Beckett in Belfast’. While Beckett’s more generalised influence on the lyrical form and language of contemporary poets has received some scholarly attention, the act of invocation more specifically has been less fully explored, particularly within an explicitly Northern Irish context. To ‘invoke’ – to call by name, to appeal to for witness or aid, to utter as a sacred name, or to summon in prayer – is a performative gesture, drawing Beckett’s presence into dynamic interaction with the poem itself. This chapter will explore precisely what force these poems seek to summon by invoking Beckett’s name. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-07T08:13:38Z |
| format | Book section |
| id | oxford-uuid:1930a5ce-2276-404d-ad12-b2564ea4162b |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-07T08:13:38Z |
| publishDate | 2022 |
| publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:1930a5ce-2276-404d-ad12-b2564ea4162b2023-12-15T09:18:08ZInvoking Beckett: Samuel Beckett’s legacy in Northern Irish poetryBook sectionhttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_1843uuid:1930a5ce-2276-404d-ad12-b2564ea4162bEnglishSymplectic ElementsCambridge University Press2022Simpson, HBrophy, JDavies, WContemporary Northern Irish poets have repeatedly, even obsessively, invoked Samuel Beckett’s name in their work, from Paul Muldoon’s mock-heroic ‘His Nibs Sam Bethicket’ and Derek Mahon’s ‘Beckett’s bleak reductio’, through Leontia Flynn’s grotesque blazon of Beckett’s ‘palpitations, panic attacks, diarrhoea’ and Padraic Fiacc’s assurance that ‘Beckett welcomes you to Paris’, to Howard’s Wright’s foul-mouthed ‘Beckett in Belfast’. While Beckett’s more generalised influence on the lyrical form and language of contemporary poets has received some scholarly attention, the act of invocation more specifically has been less fully explored, particularly within an explicitly Northern Irish context. To ‘invoke’ – to call by name, to appeal to for witness or aid, to utter as a sacred name, or to summon in prayer – is a performative gesture, drawing Beckett’s presence into dynamic interaction with the poem itself. This chapter will explore precisely what force these poems seek to summon by invoking Beckett’s name. |
| spellingShingle | Simpson, H Invoking Beckett: Samuel Beckett’s legacy in Northern Irish poetry |
| title | Invoking Beckett: Samuel Beckett’s legacy in Northern Irish poetry |
| title_full | Invoking Beckett: Samuel Beckett’s legacy in Northern Irish poetry |
| title_fullStr | Invoking Beckett: Samuel Beckett’s legacy in Northern Irish poetry |
| title_full_unstemmed | Invoking Beckett: Samuel Beckett’s legacy in Northern Irish poetry |
| title_short | Invoking Beckett: Samuel Beckett’s legacy in Northern Irish poetry |
| title_sort | invoking beckett samuel beckett s legacy in northern irish poetry |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT simpsonh invokingbeckettsamuelbeckettslegacyinnorthernirishpoetry |