#Poetry Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin #1

 

Finish: 16.03.2024
Title: Poem: The Universe in 1300
Genre: Poetry
Shortlisted for T.S. Eliot Prize 2023
Trivia: #ReadingIrelandMonth24 @ 746Books

 

Comment:

1. I spent 2 hours trying to “crack this nut”.
2. I looked everwhere and then something happened:
3. …I read that Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin  is
4. famous for using allusions from the bible, literature,
5. …Greek mythology and  old Irish myths.
6. So I started with part 2 of the poem, the one with a ‘subtitle’.
7. It was the Circle of Prodigals.
8. Well, that was the key to the puzzle.

 

1. The poet is using DANTE’S INFERNO in her poem!
2. Title: The Universe in 1300
3. .. is the fictional date when Dante wrote the Inferno.
4. It is known that the poem was written in the days leading up to Easter.
5. Ms. Ní Chuilleanáin mentions in part 2:
6. “In the middle Sunday of Lent I remember them…” 
7. So, the days leading up to Easter AND “them” is a reference to
8. …the “opportunists” Dante knew in Florence…the “twisters”.

 

Comment:

1. A final interesting observation is the time and place in which
2. …Dante wrote each part of the Divine Comedy.
3. The first third, Inferno (‘Hell’) was written in his early exile,
4. …where he must have had feelings of resentment especially towards
5. …the people of Florence, the city of his birth, that had betrayed him.

 

Comment:

1. The end of canto VI speaks of th 4th circle that includes “hoarders and spenders”.
2. In Circle of Prodigals we read: “I spent thre legacy they earned… I spent all of it”. 
3. Second stanze (part 1) “Hunted by twisters
4. and scooped forward by demons resenting my gaze a the forge steamed…”
5. Dante is approaching  4th circle filled with “twisters” (opportunists) and
6. Dante is chased by  the demon guard of the Fourth Circle Plutus.
7. He resents Dante’s gaze..
8. …and the golden moment was: “…as the forge steamed.” 
9. Now I KNOW we are talking about the Inferno.
   

 

Comment:

1. I think….I cracked this poem.
2. I am curious if others  made the connection  between
3. …“The Universe in 1300” and  Dante’s Inferno?
4. What a great feeling tonight…
5. I stuck with it and finally lifted the veil around
   
6. some of the  complexites in this poem by
7. …Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin.