Michael Longley — The Captive of Various Traditions

Abstract

Michael Longley (1939), one of the most famous modernist poets of Northern Ireland and the outstanding protagonist of the so-called Ulster Renaissance, was known for his long-standing interest in different cultural traditions or ideological paradigms that gradually became the inspirational sources he drew upon for years. The horrors of First World War experienced by his father, the sectarian violence known as the Troubles that used to shake Ulster for decades, different aspects of the centuries-old protestant – catholic controversy, the Classical heritage of his student days, the tradition of European modernism do coalesce and diverge in Longley’s lines. Our analysis will focus upon Longley’s poetic techniques transforming the aforementioned motifs into the landmarks breaking open new vistas of Ulster’s spiritual landscape. A special emphasis will be laid on the amazing syncretic power of Longley’s poetic genius helping us to penetrate the existential aporias imposed by a specific hermeticism of Ulster, customarily resistant to numerous historical and philosophical explanations.