The city in Irish culture (2002)

Declan Kiberd

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511485923.019

18 - The city in Irish culture (2002)

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009

Declan Kiberd

Show author details

Declan Kiberd: Affiliation:
University College Dublin

Book contents

Get access

Summary

In its heroic phase, the city was a site of pluralism, an example of the uses of diversity. It was in such a period that Dr Johnson could observe that when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life. The celebration of urbanity was not confined to cities – even the greatest of all Lake Poets could join in:

Earth has not anything to show more fair:

Dull would he be of soul who could pass by

A sight so touching in its majesty:

This City now doth like a garment wear

The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,

Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie

Open unto the fields, and to the sky;

All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

Never did sun more beautifully steep

In his first splendour valley, rock, or hill;

Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!

The river glideth at his own sweet will:

Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;

And all that mighty heart is lying still!

‘Sonnet: Composed upon Westminster Bridge’

Wordsworth (1807) here explicitly says that no valley, rock or hill can bring out natural beauty as well as does Westminster Bridge. The city still in sleep becomes an illustration of that romantic definition of poetry which sees it as might half-slumbering on its own right arm.

Information

Type: Chapter
Information: The Irish Writer and the World , pp. 289 - 302

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511485923.019 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2005

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Beattie, G. (1999) The Corner Boys. Belfast and London: Orion Mass Market Paperback.Google Scholar

Beckett, S. (1959) Trilogy: Molloy/Malone Dies/The Unnamable. London: Calder Publications.Google Scholar

Bolger, D. (1991) The Journey Home. London and New York: Penguin Books.Google Scholar

Gerber, A. (2001) Tradition and Ephemerality: Suburban Voices in Dermot Bolger and Roddy Doyle, Ph.D. dissertation, Trinity College Dublin, 63–80.Google Scholar

Jacobs, J. (1997) The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Random House.Google Scholar

Joyce, J. (1960) Ulysses. London: Bodley Head.Google Scholar

Maturin, C. (1818) Women, or Pour et Contre, vol. 3. London.Google Scholar

McGahern, J. (1985) High Ground. London: Faber and Faber.Google Scholar

McGahern, J. (1993) The Collected Stories. London and New York: Faber & Faber.Google Scholar

Moore, G. (1886 (1993)) A Drama in Muslin, with an introduction by James Plunkett. London: Appletree Press.Google Scholar

O'Brien, F. (2000) At Swim-Two-Birds. London and New York: Penguin Books.Google Scholar

O'Grady, S. (1878) History of Ireland: Heroic Period. London.Google Scholar

Synge, J. M. (1992) The Aran Islands. London and New York: Penguin Books.Google Scholar

Wilde, O. (1996) The Importance of Being Earnest. London and New York: Penguin Books.Google Scholar

Wilson, R. M. (1997) Eureka Street. London: Minerva.Google Scholar

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.