This is a past event
Mediaeval Irish sagas and the classical tradition
28 May 2011 Humanities Manse, Seminar Room (19 College Bounds)
About
This workshop, hosted by the Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies in association with the Centre for Cultural History, explores the significance of classical Latin texts, themes and techniques for the prose literature of mediaeval Ireland. From the tenth century onwards, Irish scholars translated and adapted classical epics and legendary histories into the Irish language, including the earliest known translation of Vergil’s Aeneid into any European vernacular. This process ranged from close translation through free adaptation to the composition of new texts which amount to free ‘fantasias’ on classical themes. It was conducted in dialogue with other European adaptations, connecting Irish textual culture with those of other Western vernaculars. A more controversial aspect of this cultural exchange has to do with the role of the classics in the production of native Irish sagas, especially ‘heroic’ tales such as the Táin: just how home-grown, or how classical, were these tales? This workshop will examine all these texts in their wider cultural contexts to shed light, not only on the early mediaeval reception of the classics, but also on the functions and meanings of literature itself in mediaeval Ireland.
Programme
Saturday 28 May
8.50 Beginning of workshop: Welcome
Classical translations, adaptations and fantasias
9.00
Dr Brent Miles (Cork): ‘Don Tres Troí and European histories of a third Troy’ (respondent: Michael Clarke)
9.45
Dr Rob Crampton (Cambridge): ‘The uses of exaggeration in adaptation, in Merugud Uilix Meic Leirtis and Fingal Chlainne Tanntail’ (respondent: Abigail Burnyeat)
10.30
Coffee
Classical techniques and allusions in native sagas
11.00
Professor Michael Clarke (Galway): ‘Birds of valour: images of battle-fury and medieval cultures of translation’ (respondent: Máire Ní Mhaonaigh)
11.45
Dr Abigail Burnyeat (Edinburgh), ‘“Wrenching the club from the hand of Hercules”: classical critical models for medieval Irish compilatio’ (respondent: Erich Poppe)
12.30
Lunch
1.15
Dr Ralph O’Connor (Aberdeen), ‘Was classical imitatio a necessary precondition for the writing of native Irish “macro-form” sagas? Reflections on the Táin and Togail Bruidne Da Derga’ (respondent: Geraldine Parsons)
2.00
Concluding discussion
For all inquiries please contact the organizer, Ralph O’Connor: r.oconnor@abdn.ac.uk