Abstract
This chapter is devoted to the poets’ relationship with language, both via the medium of the Irish language and through their practice of translation. It examines Greg Delanty’s desire to inflect the English language with Cork expressions, that stems from emigrant nostalgia, and it devotes attention to the notion of self-translation, both real and imagined. The influence of John Montague in bringing European poets to Cork is studied. The Russian influence on the poets notably Seán Dunne is studied. The cohesive role of the Cork Translation Project 2005 is also examined.
The title of this chapter refers to a short poem by Gerry Murphy entitled “Translation and Its Discontents”: Stark moonlit silence/the brindled cat is chewing/the nightingale’s tongues. End of Part One: New and Collected Poems, Dublin, Dedalus Press, 2006, p. 179.
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Ní Ríordáin, C. (2020). The Brindled Cats: Language and Translation. In: English Language Poets in University College Cork, 1970–1980. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38573-6_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38573-6_3
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Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
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