First published in 1986, A Short History of Irish Literature combines the scholarship of exceptional range and depth with the power to persuade us to read authors we have forgotten or neglected, and to re-read sympathetically those we have insensitively undervalued or dismissed.
From the earliest Gaelic poetry to Seamus Heaney and John Montague, from O Bruadair to O'Casey, Professor Deane is an admirable guide. He combines the clarity of the critic with the sensitivity of the poet, remarkably providing refreshing and provocative insights into writers we thought we knew and valued, and resurrecting those who have suffered the eclipse of fashion. All the writing is seen in the context of its period, and its political and cultural environment.
As he explores the creative tension that makes the Irish tradition so rich, the author shows how often this tension sprang from the language which was both theirs and that of their colonial overlords. This illuminates the outstanding wealth of the first vernacular literature in Europe—a literature that has given us the drama of Farquhar, Wilde, Shaw and Beckett; the fiction of Joyce; the poetry of Yeats; and that has won three Nobel Prizes. The book is completed by full chronologies which place Irish literature against the background of Irish culture and other contemporary European writing.