The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel: Kingship and Narrative Artistry in a Mediaeval Irish Saga

by Ralph O'Connor

Overview

Irish saga literature represents the largest collection of vernacular narrative in existence from the early Middle Ages, using the tools of Christian literacy to retell myths and legends about the pagan past. This unique corpus remains marginal to standard histories of Western literature: its tales are widely read, but their literary artistry remains a puzzle to many even within Celtic studies. This book, the first to offer a systematic literary analysis of any single native Irish tale, aims to show how one particularly celebrated saga 'works' as a story: the Middle Irish tale Togail Bruidne Da Derga (The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel), which James Carney called 'the finest saga of the early period'. This epic tale tells how the legendary king Conaire was raised by a shadowy Otherworld to the kingship of Tara and, after a fatal error of judgement, was hounded by spectres to an untimely death at Da Derga's Hostel at the hands of his own foster-brothers. By turns lyrical and laconic, and rich in native mythological imagery, the story is told with a dramatic intensity worthy of Greek tragedy, and the intricate symmetry of its narrative procedure recalls the visual patterning of illuminated manuscripts such as The Book of Kells. This book invites the reader to enjoy and understand this literary masterpiece, explaining its narrative artistry within its native, classical and biblical literary contexts. Against a historical backdrop of shifting ideologies of Christian kingship, it interprets the saga's possible significance for contemporary audiences as a questioning exploration of the challenges and paradoxes of kingship.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199666133
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	05/05/2013
Pages:	400
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Ralph O'Connor studied Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic and English Literature at the University of Cambridge before becoming a Junior Research Fellow in Irish and Icelandic Literature at St John's College, Cambridge. He is currently Professor of the Literature and Culture of Britain, Ireland, and Iceland at the University of Aberdeen, where he teaches in the departments of Celtic, History, and English. He has published widely on mediaeval Irish and Icelandic and modern British literature. His previous books are Icelandic Histories and Romances (Tempus, 2002), The Earth on Show: Fossils and the Poetics of Popular Science (Chicago, 2007), which won two international book prizes in 2008, and Science as Romance (Pickering & Chatto, 2012).

Table of Contents

AcknowledgementsNote on quotationsList of illustrationsIntroduction1. The text and its authors; or, how to write a saga2. A child of the Otherworld3. The plunderers' dilemma4. The road to Da Derga's Hostel5. The house of death6. The perfect spy7. Sovereignty shattered8. The Latin dimension: classical and biblical influence9. Conaire, Saul, and sacred kingship10. The message of the Togail: tract or tragedy? 11. Afterword: reading the TogailAcknowledgementsNote on quotationsList of illustrationsIntroduction1. The text and its authors; or, how to write a saga2. A child of the Otherworld3. The plunderers' dilemma4. The road to Da Derga's Hostel5. The house of death6. The perfect spy7. Sovereignty shattered8. The Latin dimension: classical and biblical influence9. Conaire, Saul, and sacred kingship10. The message of the Togail: tract or tragedy? 11. Afterword: reading the TogailAcknowledgementsNote on quotationsList of illustrationsIntroduction1. The text and its authors; or, how to write a saga2. A child of the Otherworld3. The plunderers' dilemma4. The road to Da Derga's Hostel5. The house of death6. The perfect spy7. Sovereignty shattered8. The Latin dimension: classical and biblical influence9. Conaire, Saul, and sacred kingship10. The message of the Togail: tract or tragedy? 11. Afterword: reading the Togail