Light, Freedom and Song A Cultural History of Modern Irish Writing David Pierce

In this absorbing analysis of modern Irish writing, an acknowledged expert considers the hybrid character of modern Irish writing to show how language, culture and history have been affected by the colonial encounter between Ireland and Britain. Examining the great themes of loss and struggle, Pierce traces the impact on Irish writing of the Great Famine and cultural nationalism and considers the way the work of Ireland's two leading writers, W. B.Yeats and James Joyce, complicate and elucidate our view of 'the harp and the crown'. Looking in particular at two decades taken from either half of the twentieth century, the book explores changes in the cultural landscape in the light of the colonial legacy. It draws a contrast between the West of Ireland in the 1930s, when the new Irish State under de Valera enjoyed its first full independent decade, and the North of Ireland in the 1980s, when the spectre of British imperialism threatened the stability of Ireland as a whole. Bringing the story to the present, Pierce surveys contemporary Irish writing and reflects on the legacy of the colonial encounter and on the passage to a postmodern or postnationalist Ireland in the work of such crucial living writers as John Banville, Derek Mahon and John McGahern.

Now retired, David Pierce lives in York. He is the author of James Joyce's Ireland (1992) and Yeats's Worlds: Ireland, England and the Poetic Imagination (1995), both published by Yale University Press.

"Light, Freedom and Song is a companion to Irish creative writing over the last two hundred years, a fascinating blend of commentary and critical analysis and speckled with gems of information throughout…. David Pierce is an example of that rare phenomenon, an entertaining and readable literary critic. This is a valuable book and a refreshing re-examination of the variety and complexity of Irish history and literature."
- Michael O’Sullivan, Irish Democrat, April 2009

"David Pierce's name is well known to anyone involved in the field of Irish Studies. Definitive books on Joyce and Yeats preceded this beautifully illustrated and unbelievably comprehensive appraisal of the intersections between culture and literature in modern Ireland. As one might expect from the author’s background and the chosen subject, Joyce and Yeats play a central role, but less canonical short story writers, dramatists and novelists are not neglected. When one has finished reading the book, one is left flabbergasted by the breadth of knowledge and massive scholarship that had to go into producing a study like this one. It is truly a reference point to which scholars will return again and again in search of ideas, insights and signposts… Readers of Irish Studies Review are warmly recommended to engage with this tour de force, which offers a radical reappraisal of the impact that culture exerts on Irish writing and vice versa. The photos and illustrations, many of which are in colour, as well as the paper quality and binding, make the price even more alluring." - Eamon Maher, Irish Studies Review

"Pierce’s book is entertaining and stimulating and will attract many readers beyond the scholarly community of Irish studies, but Light, Freedom and Song is also a substantial contribution to scholarship in modern Irish literary studies…. Perhaps the two richest chapters in the book are the cognate surveys of representations of the west of Ireland in the 1930s and representations of Northern Ireland in the 1980s. Pierce is interested, in the first of these chapters, in sifting the meanings for a newly independent Ireland from images and tropes of the West, delighting in catching the country in the act of self-conscious mythmaking and delighting too in the attempts to resist those myths. In the chapter on the 1980s, he devotes a substantial section to exploring the relationship among art, the body, and the corresponding troubles, and his readings of the body as a troublesome site of contest between feminism and republicanism are strikingly distinctive and refreshing…. a finely detailed, perceptive, and careful reading of the legacies of colonialism in modern Irish literature and culture." - John Brannigan, Modern Philology

'A lavishly illustrated and interesting book. Pierce writes brilliantly on Friel's Translations as one which captures the life of a people verging unknowingly on utter catastrophe... By far the most original idea here is Pierce's isolation of the idea of `the dark' as the zone in which first the Gaelic bards, then Yeats and Beckett, and later John McGahern and Seamus Deane, find their deepest element.' - Declan Kiberd, The Irish Times

'By including photographs, art reproductions, magazine illustrations, and examples of Irish popular culture in support of his discussion of modern Irish fiction, drama, poetry and film, Pierce acheives the same overall effect he did in Yeat's World: Ireland, England and the Poetic Imagination - namely, a work that is entertaining as well as scholarly ... enlightening and thought-provoking .... and of value as an overview of 20th-century Irish literary and artistic culture. Recommended.' - D. R. McCarthy, Choice

'It's a brave critic who dares to take on the complex darkness, riddled with savege and subtle contradictions, of Irish life and history ... David Pierce goes more deeply than Sean O'Casey into the dark scene, exploring centuries of struggle and loss in a style that is sharp and thoughtful, curt and comprehensive ... The brilliant achievement of this book lies in Pierce's ability to focus an almost epigrammatic style on an epic scene, to move with concentrated, energetic assurance from century to century, from writer to writer, from one historical period to another in a revealing, memorable way. I would go as far as to say that David Pierce is a gifted storyteller who deals in the facts of history and the liberating, challenging wonders of literature ... One thing is sure: David Pierce has written a book that will get the writers, artists, communicators, mockers, sneerers and endlessly interesting jokers in Ireland talking their heads off.' - Brendan Kennelly

'The journey's worthwhile. No matter how familiar you are with Irish literature, you will discover in this book writers you never knew. Much more could be said. Among areas of merit, he opens up fresh perspectives on Northern feminism against and within the republicanism of the 80s ... Rarely tainted by jargon or puffed with theory, Light, Freedom and Song is not for absolute beginners. But, if you already know your Yeats from your Keats, it follows one man's trail into the blizzard of print from an island prolific to the extreme in its inhabitants' wish to have out on paper what's been too long stored up inside as potential poem or persuasive prose.' - Seaghan O Murchu, The Blanket, A Journal of Protest and Dissent

'[Light, Freedom and Song] is thoughtful throughout, and serves as a provocative account of two centuries of Irish cultural history - which is no mean feat. Pierce usefully illuminates the links between Irish writing and other models of artistic expression, as well as to popular culture, and does a great service in referencing not only more familiar figures such as Yeats, Joyce, and Heaney, but also artists who are undeservedly neglected, such as the 1920s-1940s novelist Kathleen Coyle.' - Andrew Haggerty, James Joyce Literary Supplement