Robert Fitzroy Foster

R. F. Foster

"... Over 2000 years of Irish history, from pre-Christian times to the present-day Troubles."--Back cover.

The Oxford History of Ireland

Recounts the life of the Irish poet and nationalist, describes his relationships with his contemporaries, and traces his interest in the occult.

W.B. Yeats: The arch-poet, 1915-1939

Roy Foster

"Seamus Heaney was the leading Irish poet of the second half of the twentieth century, and, after W. B. Yeats, arguably the most significant poet in the history of Irish literature. When he died in 2013 the public reaction in Ireland was extraordinary, and the outpouring of feeling decisively demonstrated that he occupied an exceptional place in national life. The words of his last message to his wife, 'Noli timere', 'Don't be afraid', appeared over and over again on social media, while key phrases from favourite poems became and have remained canonical. In this short book, conceived for the Writers on Writers series, historian Roy Foster offers an extended and largley chronological reflection upon Heaney's life, work and historical context, from the poet's origins in Northern Ireland and the publication of Death of a Naturalist in 1966, through the explosive impact of his 1975 collection North, and then into his years as a 'world poet' and an Irish writer with a powerful influence on English literature generally. Foster considers virtually all of Heaney's major output, including later volumes such as The Spirit Level and Human Chain, as well as Heaney's translation of Beowulf and his renderings from Virgil. Throughout the book, Foster conveys something of Heaney's charismatic, expansive and subtle personality, as well as the impact of his work in both the USA and in Europe. Certain themes emerge throughout, such as the way Heaney maintained a deceptive simplicity throughout his writing career, his relations with classical literature and the poetry of dissidence in Eastern Europe, and the increasing presence of the unseen and even spiritual in his later work. Foster also highlights Heaney's importance as a critic and the largely unacknowledged ways in which his own trajectory echoed that of the life and work of Yeats. Though Heaney evaded direct comparisons with his Nobel-prizewinning predecessor, he personified the quality which he attributed to Yeats: 'the gift of establishing authority within a culture'. Both poets made a challenging and oblique use of autobiography and personal history in their work, and both sustained a very particular and sometimes contested relation to the life of their country. Foster shows us that Heaney, like Yeats, came to personify and express the Ireland of his time with unique force and resonance"--

On Seamus Heaney

An account of Ireland that explores the island from its prehistoric communities to its present political unrest, addressing seldom-discussed issues of its social inequality, Victorian morals, and other questions.

The Oxford Illustrated History of Ireland

Elizabeth Bowen, one of the writers considered in this book, described the relationship of Ireland and England as 'a mixture of showing-off and suspicion, nearly as bad as sex'. In these essays Roy Foster explores the patterns of resentment, exploitation, dependence and rejection which were created by centuries of proximity, colonization and emigration. Often seen through the individual experiences of people 'caught' between England and Ireland (a varied gallery including Randolph Churchill, Thackeray, Trollope, Yeats, Parnell and the notorious Mrs O'Shea), these intersections also cut across subjects like the representation of the Irish in Victorian journalism and fiction, the roots of constitutional nationalist agitation, and the making of literary reputations. The last essay, 'Marginal Men and Micks on the Make', is a wide-ranging discussion of the uses of exile, both to and from Ireland. Against the cut and dried stereotypes of Anglo-Irish relations, an overall ambiguity is asserted here, whether the topic examined is the flawed structure of the Act of Union, the way words are used in Irish political rhetoric, or the divided allegiances of Parnell, Yeats and Bowen. These closely linked essays stress assonances as well as dissonances, and provide a commentary on neglected aspects of literary history and national identity.

Connections in Irish and English History

Paddy and Mr. Punch

In the first authorized biography of Yeats to appear in over 50 years, leading historian R. F. Foster travels beyond Yeats's towering image as arguably the century's greatest poet to restore a real sense of his extraordinary life as he experienced it. 62 halftones, 19 linecuts.

Robert Fitzroy Foster

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