Irish Texts Society Subsidiary Series Volume 02: The Contention of the Bards (Iomarbhágh na bhFileadh) and its place in Irish Political and Literary History

€ 21.00

Book Details

Published by Irish Texts Society

January 1994

Paperback / softback

Number of pages: 72

SS2. Joep Leerssen, Professor of European Studies at the University of Amsterdam, has made a significant contribution to the study of Irish literature in the seventeenth century. Here, in a detailed literary historical analysis, he presents the poems comprising the Contention of the Bards, originally edited for the Society by Lambert McKenna (Main Series 20-21), as much more than a final display of bardic erudition and eloquence. He views the Contention as a unique registration of an ancient tradition coming to terms with the disintegration of both its social raison d’être and its cultural Weltanschauung.