Michael Clarke
s. xx–xxi
Works edited
Contributions to journals
It is a familiar cliché, even a trope, to characterise Cú Chulainn as 'the Irish Achilles' and to exemplify this by citing the shared motif of the hero choosing an early death and eternal fame in preference to a long inglorious life. Building on Brent Miles' insight that knowledge of the 'choice of Achilles' story could have come to the Irish literati through the commentary on Vergil known as Servius Auctus, this article aims to reconstruct the reading strategies that might have been applied to this text in the period when Táin bó Cúailnge was taking shape. The argument is pursued by examining two manuscripts of Servius Auctus (MSS Bern, Burgerbibliothek 167 & 172), of which other sections preserve direct evidence for Irish engagement with Virgilian poetry in the form of marginalia focussed on the word picti in connexion with the British race known as the Picts. The picti material provides the model for a hypothetical reconstruction of how the literati might have interpreted and re-contextualised the Achilles material in these or similar annotated manuscripts of Vergil. This encourages a revised assessment of how and why the makers of the Táin may have been engaging creatively with the perceived parallelism between Cú Chulainn and Achilles.
It is a familiar cliché, even a trope, to characterise Cú Chulainn as 'the Irish Achilles' and to exemplify this by citing the shared motif of the hero choosing an early death and eternal fame in preference to a long inglorious life. Building on Brent Miles' insight that knowledge of the 'choice of Achilles' story could have come to the Irish literati through the commentary on Vergil known as Servius Auctus, this article aims to reconstruct the reading strategies that might have been applied to this text in the period when Táin bó Cúailnge was taking shape. The argument is pursued by examining two manuscripts of Servius Auctus (MSS Bern, Burgerbibliothek 167 & 172), of which other sections preserve direct evidence for Irish engagement with Virgilian poetry in the form of marginalia focussed on the word picti in connexion with the British race known as the Picts. The picti material provides the model for a hypothetical reconstruction of how the literati might have interpreted and re-contextualised the Achilles material in these or similar annotated manuscripts of Vergil. This encourages a revised assessment of how and why the makers of the Táin may have been engaging creatively with the perceived parallelism between Cú Chulainn and Achilles.
Merugud Uilix remains an unsolved puzzle. It clearly reflects considerable Classical learning, but its stylistic character and narrative techniques are such that many readers have associated it with oral tradition and folklore. It is here proposed that the opening of the tale is an expanded translation of the section on Ulysses in the anonymous Excidium Troie, an early medieval school-text on Trojan War mythology that served as an aid to the study of Vergil's Aeneid. The author of the Merugud began from this source and extended it with other materials, taken both from Vergil-based study and from the wider resources of Irish-language narrative tradition.
Merugud Uilix remains an unsolved puzzle. It clearly reflects considerable Classical learning, but its stylistic character and narrative techniques are such that many readers have associated it with oral tradition and folklore. It is here proposed that the opening of the tale is an expanded translation of the section on Ulysses in the anonymous Excidium Troie, an early medieval school-text on Trojan War mythology that served as an aid to the study of Vergil's Aeneid. The author of the Merugud began from this source and extended it with other materials, taken both from Vergil-based study and from the wider resources of Irish-language narrative tradition.
Contributions to edited collections or authored works
The Irish Liber Hymnorum is a collection of hymns and para-liturgical material contained in two glossed and richly-decorated manuscripts from the late eleventh century. The hymns themselves, and the commentary apparatus, exhibit a pattern of alternation and even virtual merger between Latin and Old Irish. It is argued here that this interaction between languages is essential to the representation of the poems as a national poetic and spiritual canon.
The Irish Liber Hymnorum is a collection of hymns and para-liturgical material contained in two glossed and richly-decorated manuscripts from the late eleventh century. The hymns themselves, and the commentary apparatus, exhibit a pattern of alternation and even virtual merger between Latin and Old Irish. It is argued here that this interaction between languages is essential to the representation of the poems as a national poetic and spiritual canon.
