Irish Poets and Modern Greece : Heaney, Mahon, Cavafy, Seferis

332 Pages·2017·4.26 MB·English

by  Joanna Kruczkowska

IRISH POETS AND MODERN GREECE
Heaney, Mahon, Cavafy, Seferis
Joanna Kruczkowska
Irish Poets and Modern Greece
Joanna Kruczkowska
Irish Poets
and Modern Greece
Heaney, Mahon, Cavafy, Seferis
Joanna Kruczkowska
Institute ofEnglishStudies
University ofLodz
Lodz,Poland
ISBN978-3-319-58168-2 ISBN978-3-319-58169-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-58169-9
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2017944168
This research was supported by a Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship within the 7th
EuropeanCommunityFrameworkProgrammeunderREAgrantagreementno.623747.
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Coverimage©JoannaKruczkowska
Paros, Greece: Naousaviewed from the Minoan acropolis at Koukounaries (photo: author,
2015)
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Moim Rodzicom
A
CKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I express my gratitude to the Dean of the Faculty of Philology of the
University of Lodz: Prof. Piotr Stalmaszczyk for his generosity with the
sabbatical. The Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship (2015–2016) and
a preceding visiting research, both hosted by Prof. Liana Sakelliou at the
UniversityofAthens,havebeenoftremendoushelpincollectingmaterial.
I am indebted to Prof. David Ricks and Prof. Peter Mackridge for their
precious remarks, time and kindness, and especially to Rowena Fowler for
her wonderful friendship and our constant dialogue about Heaney’s
Greece. I would like to thank Richard Pine for his thoughtful assistance
with the editing process and Stella Lubsen for her hospitality, readiness to
sharehermemories,andfortwogreatphotosincludedinthisbook.Ialso
gratefully acknowledge the support provided by Tomas René and Vicky
Bates at Palgrave Macmillan during the course of publication.
EarlierversionsofsmallpartsofthismaterialappearedinThePlayfulAir
of Light(ness) in Irish Literature and Culture (Cambridge Scholars
Publishing2011),Irish Landscapes:NewMyths,NewPerspectives(Palgrave
Macmillan 2012), and the Landscapes journal (Taylor and Francis 2016).
My special thanks go to Derek Mahon and The Gallery Press for their
generous permission to reproduce longer parts of his poems (The Sea in
Winter, 1979, and Cavafy translations from Echo’s Grove: Translations,
2013) and an unpublished poem “VI (after Cavafy).” Extracts taken from
SeamusHeaney’spoetryandprose(copyrighttheSeamusHeaneyEstate),
including “Sonnets from Hellas,” Cavafy translations (Hermathena 179,
Winter 2005) and the unpublished versions of Heaney’s poems from the
Seamus Heaney Literary Papers, are reproduced with the kind permission
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
of Faber and Faber Ltd. The unpublished versions of Heaney’s poems are
also courtesy of the National Library of Ireland; call numbers in endnotes
refer to the Seamus Heaney Literary Papers 1963–2010 at the NLI.
Thisbookwouldhavenotbeenpossiblewithouttheloveandsupportof
my parents, Czesława and Julian Kruczkowscy, and my Greek friends:
Maqίa Mtkxmάjη, Maqίa Papacexqcίot, Akέnamdqo1 Bέqcη1, Etη
Nijokajάjot and Pέqra Aporsokή.
C
ONTENTS
Part I Travel and Landscape
1 Island Visions: Derek Mahon’s Cyclades 3
2 Mainland Hellas: Seamus Heaney’s Peloponnese
and Delphi 69
Part II Translation of Cavafy
3 The Winding Road of Translation: Derek Mahon’s
Versions of Cavafy 133
4 Mediating the Canon: Seamus Heaney’s Versions
of Cavafy 197
ix
x CONTENTS
Part III Allusion to Seferis
5 Asphodels and Aspalathoi—Seferis, Heaney, Mahon:
Politics and Landscape 249
Bibliography 289
Index 305
L F
IST OF IGURES
Fig. 1.1 Oldharbourin Naousa, Paros, duringthejunta: thewall
oftheformer Venetian Consulatowith thename ofthe
squaremarking thedateoftheimposition
ofthedictatorship inGreece (21April1967)
anditssymbol ofthePhoenix 15
Fig. 1.2 The locationofthe SacredLake onDelos where,according
to Greekmythology, Letogave birth to ApolloandArtemis 33
Fig. 1.3 Naousaharbour; in mid-background, themonastery ofAgios
Ioannis 39
Fig. 1.4 The monasteryof AgiosIoannis, Paros 44
Fig. 1.5 Naxosviewed from theKorakas Peninsula, Paros 48
Fig. 1.6 Achill, Ireland: theStrand atKeel 50
Fig. 1.7 DerekMahon atStella Lubsen’s houseonParosin 1997 52
Fig. 1.8 ‘Aphrodite’s Pool’:the swimmingpoolatStella Lubsen’s
houseonParos 55
Fig. 2.1 Pylos harbour, Peloponnese:the Sphacteria islet
in thebackground;theneonof SeamusHeaney’s hotel
(Karalis Beach) onthepromontory, left 93
Fig. 5.1 CapeSounion, Attica, withthe Poseidontemple 273
xi