By E.C. QUIGGIN, M.A.
Among the literary peoples of the west of Europe, the Irish, in late
medieval and early modern times, were singularly little affected by
the frequent innovations in taste and theme which influenced Romance
and Teutonic nations alike. To such an extent is this true, that one
is often inclined to think that far-off Iceland was to a greater
degree in the general European current than the much more accessible
Erin. During the age of chivalry, conditions in Ireland were not
calculated to promote the growth of epic and lyric poetry after the
continental manner. Some considerable time elapsed before the Norman
barons became fully Hibernicised, previous to which their interest
may be assumed to have turned to the compositions of the trouvères.
In the early Norman period, the poets of Ireland might well have
begun to imitate Romance models. But, strange to say, they did not,
and, for this, various reasons might be assigned. The flowing verses
of the Anglo-Norman were impossible for men who delighted in the
trammels of the native prosody; and in the heyday of French
influence, the patrons of letters in Ireland probably insisted on
hearing the foreign compositions in their original dress, as these
nobles were doubtless sufficiently versed in Norman-French to be able
to appreciate them. But a still more potent factor was the
conservatism of the hereditary Irish poet families. A close
corporation, they appear to have resented every innovation, and were
content to continue the tradition of their ancestors. The direct
consequence of this tenacious clinging to the fashions of by-gone
days rendered it impossible, nay almost inconceivable, that the
literary men of Ireland should have exerted any profound or immediate
influence upon England or western Europe. Yet, nowadays, few serious
scholars will be prepared to deny that the island contributed in
considerable measure to the common literary stock of the Middle Ages.
We might expect to find that direct influence, as a general rule, can
be most easily traced in the case of religious themes. Here, in the
literature of vision, so popular in Ireland, a chord was struck which
continued to vibrate powerfully until the time of the Reformation. In
this branch the riotous fancy of the Celtic monk caught the medieval
imagination from an early period. Bede has preserved for us the story
of Fursey, an Irish hermit who died in France, A.D. 650. The greatest
Irish composition of this class with which we are acquainted, the
_Vision of Adamnan_, does not appear to have been known outside the
island, but a later work of a similar nature met with striking
success. This was the _Vision of Tundale_ (Tnudgal), written in Latin
by an Irishman named Marcus at Regensburg, about the middle of the
twelfth century. It seems probable that this work was known to Dante,
and, in addition to the numerous continental versions, there is a
rendering of the story into Middle English verse.
Closely allied to the Visions are the _Imrama_ or "voyages" (Lat.
_navigationes_). The earliest romances of this class are secular,
_e.g., Imram Maelduin_, which provided Tennyson with the frame-work
of his well-known poem. However, the notorious love of adventure on
the part of the Irish monks inevitably led to the composition of
religious romances of a similar kind. The most famous story of this
description, the_ Voyage of St. Brendan_, found its way into every
Christian country in Europe, and consequently figures in the South
English Legendary, a collection of versified lives of saints made in
the neighborhood of Gloucester towards the end of the thirteenth
century. The episode of St. Brendan and the whale, moreover, was
probably the ultimate source of one of Milton's best known similes in
his description of Satan. Equally popular was the visit of Sir Owayn
to the Purgatory of St. Patrick, which is also included in the same
Middle English Legendary. Ireland further contributed in some measure
to the common stock of medieval stories which were used as
illustrations by the preachers and in works of an edifying character.
When we turn to purely secular themes, we find ourselves on much less
certain ground. Though the discussion as to the origins of the
"romance of Uther's son", Arthur, continues with unabated vigor, many
scholars have come think that the Celtic background of these stories
contains much that is derived from Hibernian sources. Some writers in
the past have argued in favor of an independent survival of common
Celtic features, in Wales and Ireland, but now the tendency is to
regard all such coincidences as borrowings on the part of Cymric
craftsmen. At the beginning of the twelfth century a new impulse
seems to have been imparted to native minstrelsy in Wales under'the
patronage of Gruffydd ap Cynan, a prince of Gwynedd, who had spent
many years in exile at the court of Dublin. Some of the Welsh
rhapsodists apparently served a kind of apprenticeship with their
Irish brethren, and many things Irish were assimilated at this time
which, through this channel, were shortly to find their way into
Anglo-French. Thus it may now be regarded as certain that the name of
the "fair sword" Excalibur, by Geoffrey called Caliburnus (Welsh
_caletfwlch_), is taken from Caladbolg, the far-famed broadsword of
Fergus macRoig. It does not appear that the whole framework of the
Irish sagas was taken over, but, as Windisch points out, episodes
were borrowed as well as tricks of imagery. So, to mention but one,
the central incident of _Syr Gawayn and the Grene Knyght_ is
doubtless taken from the similar adventure of Cuchulainn in
_Bricriu's Feast_. The share assigned to Irish influence in the
_matière de Bretagne_ is likely to grow considerably with the
progress of research.
The fairy lore of Great Britain undoubtedly owes much to Celtic
phantasy. Of this Chaucer, at any rate, had little doubt, as he
writes:
In th' olde dayes of the King Arthour,
Of which that Britons speken greet honour,
Al was this land fulfild of fayerye;
The elf-queen, with hir joly companye,
Daunced ful ofte in many a grene med.
And here again there is a reasonable probability that certain
features were borrowed from the wealth of story current in the
neighboring isle. Otherwise it is difficult to understand why the
queen of fayerye should bear an Irish name (Mab, from Irish Medb),
and curiously enough the form of the name rathef suggests that it was
borrowed through a written medium and not by oral tradition. On the
other hand it is incorrect to derive Puck from Irish _puca_, as the
latter is undoubtedly borrowed from some form of Teutonic speech.
So all embracing a mind as that of the greatest English dramatist
could not fail to be interested in the gossip that must have been
current in London at the time of the wars in Ulster. References to
kerns and gallowglasses are fairly frequent. He had evidently heard
of the marvellous powers with which the Irish bards were credited,
for, in _As You Like It_, Rosalind exclaims:
"I was never so be-rhymed since Pythagoras' time, that I was an Irish
rat, which I can hardly remember."
Similarly, in _King Richard III_, mention is made of the prophetic
utterance of an Irish bard, a trait which does not appear in the
poet's source. Any statements as to Irish influence in Shakespeare
that go beyond this belong to the realm of conjecture. Professor
Kittredge has attempted to show that in Syr Orfeo, upon which the
poet drew for portions of the plot of _A Midsummer Night's Dream_,
the Irish story of Etain and Mider was fused with the medieval form
of the classical tale of Orpheus and Eurydice. Direct influence is
entirely wanting, and it is difficult to see how it could have been
otherwise.
Even in the case of the Elizabethan poet who spent many years in the
south of Ireland, there is no trace of Hibernian lore or legend.
Spenser, indeed, tells us himself that he had caused some of the
native poetry to be translated to him, and had found that it
"savoured of sweet wit and good invention." But Ireland plays an
infinitesimal part in the _Faerie Queene_. The scenery round
Kilcolman Castle forms the background of much of the incident in Book
V. "Marble far from Ireland brought" is mentioned in a simile in the
second Book, where we also read:
As when a swarme of gnats at eventide
Out of the fennes of Allan do arise.
But Ireland supplied no further inspiration.
The various plantations of the seventeenth century produced an
Anglo-Irish stock which soon asserted itself in literature. As a
typical example, we may take the author of _The Vicar of Wakefield_.
At his first school at Lissoy, Oliver Goldsmith came under Thomas
Byrne, a regular shanachie, possessed of all the traditional lore,
with a remarkable gift for versifying. It was under this man that the
boy made his first attempts at verse, and his memory is celebrated in
_The Deserted Village_:
There, in his noisy mansion, skilled to rule,
The village master taught his little school.
A man severe he was, and stern to view.
Unfortunately Goldsmith was removed to Elphin at the age of nine, and
although he retained an affection for Irish music all his life, his
intimate connection with Irish Ireland apparently ceased at this
point. "Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain" is doubtless
full of reminiscences of the poet's early years in Westmeath, but the
sentiments, the rhythm, and the language are entirely cast in an
English mould. We may mention, in passing, that it has been suggested
that Swift derived the idea of the kingdom of Lilliput from the Irish
story of the Adventures of Fergus macLeide amongst the leprechauns.
All that can be said is that this derivation is not impossible,
though the fact that the tale is preserved only in a single
manuscript rather points to the conclusion that the story did not
enjoy great popularity in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
We have seen that Goldsmith was removed from an Irish atmosphere at a
tender age, and this is not the only instance of the frowning of
fortune upon the native literature. When the fame of the ancient
bards of the Gael was noised from end to end of Europe, it was
through the medium of Macpherson's forgeries. _Fingal_ caught the
fleeting fancy of the moment in a manner never achieved by the true
Ossianic lays of Ireland. The _Reliques of Irish Poetry_, published
by Miss Brooke by subscription in Dublin in 1789 to vindicate the
antiquity of the literature of Erin, never went into a second
edition. And although some of the pieces contained in that volume
have been reprinted in such undertakings of a learned character as
the volumes of the Dublin Ossianic Society, J.F. Campbell's _Leabhar
na Feinne_, and Cameron's _Reliquiae Celticae_, they have aroused
little interest amongst those ignorant of the Irish tongue.
During the nineteenth century, the number of poets who drew upon
Ireland's past for their themes increased considerably. The most
popular of all is unquestionably the author of the _Irish Melodies_.
But, here again, the poet owes little or nothing to vernacular
poetry, the mould is English, the sentiments are those of the poet's
age. Moore's acquaintance with the native language can have been but
of the slightest, and in the case of Mangan we are told that he had
to rely upon literal versions of Irish pieces furnished him by
O'Donovan or O'Curry. Of the numerous attempts to reproduce the
overelaboration of rhyme to which Irish verse has ever been prone,
Father Prout's _Bells of Shandon_ is perhaps the only one that is at
all widely known. When the legendary lore of Ireland became
accessible to men of letters, owing to the labors of O'Curry,
O'Donovan, and Hennessy, and the publication of various ancient texts
by the Irish Archaeological Society, it was to be expected that an
attempt would be made by some poet of Erin to do for his native land
what the Wizard of the North had accomplished for Scotland. The task
was undertaken by Sir Samuel Ferguson, who met with conspicuous
success. His most ambitious effort, _Congal_, deals in epic fashion
with the story of the battle of Moyra. Others in similar strain treat
the story of Conaire Mór and Deirdre, whilst others such as the
_Tain-Quest_ are more in the nature of ballads. Ferguson did more to
introduce the English reading public to Irish story than would have
been accomplished by any number of bald translations. His diction is
little affected by the originals, and he sometimes treats his
materials with great freedom, but his achievement was a notable one,
and he has not infrequently been acclaimed as the national poet.
Is it perhaps invidious to single out any living author for special
mention, but this brief survey cannot close without noticing the
dramatic poems of W.B. Yeats, the latest poet who attempts to present
the old stories in an English dress. His plays _On Baile's Strand,
Deirdre_, and others, have become familiar to English audiences
through the excellent acting of the members of the Abbey Theatre
Company. The original texts are now much better known than they were
in Ferguson's day, and Mr. Yeats consequently cannot permit himself
the same liberties. Similarly, it is only during the last twenty-five
years that the language of Irish poetry has been carefully studied,
and Mr. Yeats has this advantage over his predecessors that on
occasion, e.g., in certain passages in _The King's Threshold_, he is
able to introduce with great effect reminiscences of the
characteristic epithets and imagery which formed so large a part of
the stock-in-trade of the medieval bard.