Thomas Kinsella

by Maurice Harmon

"This comprehensive study, published to coincide with eightieth birthday celebrations, interprets Thomas Kinsella's extraordinary progress from lyric poems and meditations about fragility and impermanence to complex assessments of individual isolation and helplessness in the modern world. His work, which has been knitted to Dublin city, expresses his engagement with Irish life and culture in 'Nightwalker', Poems from Centre City, Personal Places, and The Pen Shop. His involvement with Irish history, evident in his absorption with the past and his creative interpretation of the arrival and settling in of prehistoric people, is demonstrated in his extensive translations from Irish literature." "He is also a universal poet who has explored Jungian archetypes in New Poems, psychological stress in the 'Wormwood' sequence, the notion of meaninglessness in Her Vertical Smile and of living on the edge in Marginal Economy. In his persistent search for understanding he has examined the effects o