The dark cave and the devine light

Forlagets omtale:

The aims of this libellus are essentially threefold. In its latter part, I wish to provide a critique of Giolla Brighde Ó hEódhasa's Truagh cor chloinne hÁdhaimh, a poem which casts light on the philosophical and psychological assumptions of its age and offers fascinating insights into the author's … LES MER compositional and translational techniques. The poem offers a rendering of a Latin original that belongs to the genre known as Contemptus Mundi or 'Contempt for the world', in the Irish tradition Tarcaisne an tSaoghail. It is, moreover, a piece that demonstrates Giolla Brighde's unsurpassed ability to render the spirit of an original with remarkable compression, combining fidelity of rendition with, when necessary, a degree of judicious licence. Before doing so, however, I wish to elucidate the moral and intellectual context of that poem by bringing into focus pertinent sections of Truagh liomsa, a chompáin, do chor, another of Giolla Brighde's poems which, with a total of ninety verses, is rather too lengthy for close exposition here; the principal connection between these two poems being the combined light they shed on Northern Renaissance views of the human condition. The overall purpose of the work is, I should add, to explore the extent to which the mind of this Irish poet was moulded by the philosophical thinking of his age. LES MINDRE Forlagets omtale Forlagets The aims of this libellus are essentially threefold. In its latter part, I wish to provide a critique of Giolla Brighde Ó hEódhasa's Truagh cor chloinne hÁdhaimh, a poem which casts light on the philosophical and psychological assumptions of its age and offers fascinating insights into the author's compositional and translational techniques. The poem offers a rendering of a Latin original that belongs to the genre known as Contemptus Mundi or 'Contempt for the world', in the Irish tradition Tarcaisne an tSaoghail. It is, moreover, a piece that demonstrates Giolla Brighde's unsurpassed ability to render the spirit of an original with remarkable compression, combining fidelity of rendition with, when necessary, a degree of judicious licence. Before doing so, however, I wish to elucidate the moral and intellectual context of that poem by bringing into focus pertinent sections of Truagh liomsa, a chompáin, do chor, another of Giolla Brighde's poems which, with a total of ninety verses, is rather too lengthy for close exposition here; the principal connection between these two poems being the combined light they shed on Northern Renaissance views of the human condition. The overall purpose of the work is, I should add, to explore the extent to which the mind of this Irish poet was moulded by the philosophical thinking of his age.