Oldal 20 [20]
18 | Péter Dolmanyos
Due to this ambivalent position of history, more attention is paid to spatial el¬
ements, and as Kirkland concludes, “the landscape becomes a mode of redemp¬
tion through which the writer can mediate the politics of identity to his/her
community.” This points beyond the concern with the immediate physical
reality of space and suggests the approach to space as a product, which in turn
attributes a significant position to experience and the person of the observer:
Just as perspective, experience and training can determine the meaning
that a viewing subject will draw from a particular landscape, so perspec¬
tive, experience and training may also determine what kinds of spatial
practices are considered worthy of the subject’s gaze in the first place ¬
that is, what is inherently relevant and/or meaningful and what, by virtue
of its invisibility or incoherence, is ‘obviously’ neutral and/or existentially
vacant. ‘Space’ in this sense is both the reality to be engaged (what kinds
of space is the poet going to write about) and a metaphor for envisaging
how the poetic subject locates itself in terms of an already inhabited poetic
landscape.*’
The gaze of the subject and his location of himself in the poetic landscape also
contribute to the understanding of space as product, thus poetic practice does
not only reflect the spatial emphasis but has an active role in constituting it
and making it a central concern in the specific context of Northern Ireland.
Although several sceptical or outright dismissive opinions have been for¬
mulated about a distinct Northern Irish tradition of poetry," there is a gen¬
eral acknowledgement of a “well-established North-South divide” to suggest
different centres of poetry. Indeed, the “particular geographical, historical
and cultural matrix”°° of Northern Ireland offers a legitimate claim for a spe¬
cific Northern tradition. That particular matrix includes elements that relate
it to the broader Irish and/or British literary tradition but at the same time it
points towards a position beyond either or both, without a claim for clear-cut
absolute positioning. As a consequence of its particular context, “Northern
Irish poetry complicates and enriches itself through cross-cultural bricolage
and hybridity”*! as well as it “struggles to preserve a sense of unique iden¬
tity and local attachment in the face of globalisation, interstitial migrancy
and postmodern scepticism.”** This dynamism of centripetal and centrifugal
16 Kirkland, Literature and Culture in Northern Ireland Since 1965, 33
4” Smyth, Space and the Irish Cultural Imagination, 72
18 cf. Thomas Kinsella (ed), The New Oxford Book of Irish Verse (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986),
xxx; Peter Fallon and Derek Mahon (eds), The Penguin Book of Contemporary Irish Poetry (Harmond¬
sworth: Penguin Books, 1990), xx; Montague, The Figure in the Cave, 15
Jerzy Jarniewicz and John McDonagh, “Scattered and diverse: Irish poetry since 1990. In: Scott
Brewster and Michael Parker (eds.) Irish literature since 1990. Diverse voices (Manchester: Manches¬
ter University Press, 2009), 137
Elmer Kennedy-Andrews, Northern Irish Poetry. The American Connection (London: Palgrave Macmil¬
lan, 2014), 1
Kennedy-Andrews, Northern Irish Poetry, 2
Kennedy-Andrews, Northern Irish Poetry, 2
49