Irish language literature
The Irish-language literature is the part of Irish literature , in the Irish language was written. It dates from the early Middle Ages to the present day.
Old Irish
When the first preserved written records on Irish have the Ogam - inscriptions are known as literature , however, are difficult to describe. The texts preserved on the stones consist only of personal names in the genitive (stone / field? / Possession? Of ...), which are occasionally supplemented by brief information.
The first sources are in Latin script from the 7th century . Above all, the glosses should be mentioned, mostly short, sometimes longer Irish-language commentaries on the main Latin texts in manuscripts . Today these are mainly kept in St. Gallen , Würzburg and Milan and are very important in terms of linguistic history. In addition, literary monuments have also been preserved from this time, initially in the form of poems . The poem Messe ocus Pangúr Bán ("Me and the white Pangúr"), in which an Irish wandering monk sings about the togetherness of the monastery cell with his white cat, has achieved a certain degree of popularity in southern Germany . It has been preserved on the edge of a manuscript . Glosses and some poems are the only surviving direct sources of the Old Irish period ( Sean-Ghaeilge , Old Irish , approximately 600 - 900 ).
Central Irish
In the following centuries ( Middle Irish , Meán-Ghaeilge , Middle Irish , about 900 - 1200 ), the Irish literature, however, experienced a huge boom. It forms the most extensive surviving medieval text corpus in Western Europe . New works were created especially in the monasteries . In addition, older texts were meticulously copied, recompiled and often linguistically and / or content-wise modernized or supposedly corrected. (The language had evolved, and older spellings or inflected endings were often viewed as incorrect or out of date).
During this time, among other things, many prose stories intermingled with poetry were created , of which the Táin Bó Cuailgne (The Cattle Robbery of Cuailgne / Cooley) is probably the best known and most important. Many of the legends about the hero Cú Chulainn form a foundation of Irish mythology and folklore to this day . The táin forms the central component of the Ulster cycle , one of the four narrative cycles into which the Middle Irish sagas are divided by modern science. In addition to this cycle, the mythological cycle , the later Finn cycle and the historical cycle are important.
Even poetry , genealogies , medical treatises, places and persons legends arose. The extensive corpus of legal texts (partly in Irish , partly in Latin ) is also worth mentioning . The latter is particularly important for the reconstruction of Old Irish, as the texts often reverted to older ones and the copyists apparently made more hesitant changes when copying an old legal text than with other texts.
Early Neo-Irish / Classical Irish
In the centuries following the Norman Conquest in 1169 (Frühneuirisch, Nua-Ghaeilge Chlasaiceach , Early Modern Irish , about 1200 - 1600 ) was the literary and copying activity gradually from the monasteries to a number of private, wealthy families over. However, the type of text that has emerged is largely the same as that of the previous language level . A large number of new works were created, as a more or less new genre, especially eulogies and elegies , which were mostly written on behalf of local rulers. But it was still copied very extensively.
Seathrún Céitinn (Geoffrey Keating), who lived at the end of the classical period and whose language and style remained formative until the revival of Irish as a literary language, especially his historical work Fios Feasa ar Éirinn, should be emphasized .
New Irish
1600 is considered to be the beginning of the New Irish period ( Nua-Ghaeilge , Modern Irish ). In 1607 the remnants of the local nobility are expelled. The most serious consequence for literature is that the previous institutionalized system of clients and employers or patrons on the one hand, and poets and copyists on the other, disappeared and many poets became unemployed when bards went on the road and had to hire out. Irish literature slowly but surely came to a standstill by the end of the 19th century. To a limited extent, older manuscripts were copied and rearranged, but little was written. Worth mentioning are the romantic Aisling poetry ("Vision"), in which the return of an old time was evoked, as well as some individual works such as the funeral poem Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire (The Lament for Art Ó Laohaire) and the longer poem Cúirt an Mheán Oíche ( The midnight court).
revival
There was a renaissance of Irish at the end of the 19th century . In the end, only a small part of the population was involved in this movement (by no means only Catholics!), But it encompassed almost all areas of public life, even sport . Literature has also benefited from this upturn to this day .
In 1900 the first two Irish novels appeared , in 1904 the first novel of lasting importance: Séadna by Father Peadar Ua Laoghaire . In the period that followed, a large number of volumes of short stories and poetry, as well as novels and plays, were produced. Up until the Second World War, with some reservations well into the 1960s, various literary conventions were tested, which since the 1970s has been expressed in a very lively and lively literary scene. The most important book in the Irish language is still Cré na Cille (Graveyard Soil , 1949) by Máirtín Ó Cadhain , who came from Connemara but spent most of his life as an Irish teacher in Dublin. Just a few other important authors: Eoghan Ó Tuairisc (predominantly prose ), Diarmaid Ó Súilleabháin (predominantly prose), Máire Mhac an tSaoi ( poetry ), Máirtín Ó Direáin (poetry), Séamas Mac Annaidh (prose), Pádraic Breathnach (prose) ), Micheál Ó Conghaile (both), Alan Titley (prose and reviews ), Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill (poetry), Gabriel Rosenstock (poetry).
Many works of Irish literature in particular fall into the autobiography category . Many residents of the Gaeltacht and other rural areas have written down and published their life stories , sometimes under the guidance of linguists or anthropologists . However, this genus has been less common since the 1960s. For a long time, this corpus was a central area of literary criticism , primarily from a linguistic point of view . More recently, however, these works have been viewed as peripheral in literary terms. The so-called Blasket Biographies , which were also published in Germany , are particularly well known .
Given the low numbers of native and first-language speakers , the number of books published in Irish is astonishing. However, these are mostly read by the same group of people who wrote them: educated citizens with a cultural interest. From the beginning to the middle of the 20th century there was something like a peasant and fisherman's literature, the value of which is now often seen more as sociological or linguistic than literary .
Translations
Works in the Irish language published in German (mostly translated via English):
- Breandán Ó hEithir : Lead us into temptation ( Lig Sinn i gCathú , 1976). Kiepenheuer, Leipzig 1985.
- Flann O'Brien : Das Barmen or Irish curriculum vitae ( An Béal Bocht under the name Myles na gCopaleen, 1941). Suhrkamp, most recently in 2001.
- Dónall Mac Amhlaidh : The Alphabet Agam ( Schnitzer Ó Sé , 1960). Rotbuch, most recently in 2001.
- Pádraig Standún : The Cattle ( An tAinmhí , 1992). Pendragon 1999.
- Tomás Ó Criomhthain (Tomás O'Crohan), The Boats Don't Go Out ( An tOileánach , 1929). Lamuv 1983.
- Peig Sayers : As Irish as I am ( Peig , 1936). Lamuv 1996.
- Muiris Ó Súilleabháin : island home ( Fiche Bliain ag Fás , 1933). Manesse 1956.
- Jürgen Schneider (Ed.): Irrlandt Ireland Ireland . Special volume Edition Druckhaus 11. Galrev 1993.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Pangur Bán on Wikisource
- ↑ Séadna on Wikisource