During the nineteenth century there was a remarkable flowering of peasant verse in the Ulster counties of Antrim and Down. Witty, irreverent and deeply egalitarian, these poems were written by working people - hand-loom weavers, small farmers and country schoolmasters - for people much like themselves. The poets wrote in the 'lively tongue' of the Ulster-Scots vernacular and drew their themes from the landscape and life of the community at a time when the making of flax into linen played a basic part in the economic and ...
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During the nineteenth century there was a remarkable flowering of peasant verse in the Ulster counties of Antrim and Down. Witty, irreverent and deeply egalitarian, these poems were written by working people - hand-loom weavers, small farmers and country schoolmasters - for people much like themselves. The poets wrote in the 'lively tongue' of the Ulster-Scots vernacular and drew their themes from the landscape and life of the community at a time when the making of flax into linen played a basic part in the economic and social pattern. John Hewitt's 'Rhyming Weavers' is both a study and a celebration of the lives and work of these country poets. His extended introduction provides an accessible account of the context in which the poets wrote and is complemented by a select anthology that includes poems by well-known local bards such as David Herbison, James Orr and Samuel Thomson. First published in 1974, Hewitt's anthology was an act of recovery, an excavation of a vibrant aspect of Ulster's literary history. Reissued again, fifty years later and with a new foreword by Frank Ferguson, 'Rhyming Weavers' remains a seminal work, making an important contribution to Ulster-Scots writing and to debates about language and identity in these islands.
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Add this copy of Rhyming Weavers: and Other Country Poets of Antrim and to cart. $24.37, new condition, Sold by Kennys.ie rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Galway, IRELAND, published 2024 by Blackstaff Press Ltd.
