Preface

Unity is one of the criteria by which an anthology of essays is often judged, but a glance over the essay titles of this book quickly makes apparent the fact that the dominant characteristic of the collection is not unity, but diversity.The book's title, it is true, serves to relate the disparate subjects to a single theme, and I think the recurrent preoccupation with myth, direct or implied, both in Irish literature itself and throughout these essays, demonstrates that the relationship is both real and useful.On the other hand, the scope suggested by "Myth and Reality" is so broad as to be able to include almost any subject concerning Irish literature, or perhaps any literature.Poetry takes over the function of myth in society as myth itself breaks down, David Greene tells us, and "exists because it is an expression of the myth."It is the ambiguity, between exclusiveness and inclusiveness, that characterizes the entire field of literary study, that gives an individual poem autonomy or that brings diverse works of literature into a common bond through myth, or that brings together two or more writers in each of several essays, or makes the student of Yeats interested in the early Christian Ireland over whose advent Oisin had so despaired.Any student of Yeats or Joyce, moreover, or of Synge, O'Casey, Beckett, or another, learns very quickly that while that author's great poems, novels, or plays had initially generated his interest-and generated it most often by transcending provincialism-it is impossible to escape an involvement with other Irish writers, and with Ireland itself-history, politics and art as well as myth.The mutual illumination between Ireland and individual Irish writers becomes more poignant the longer one is engaged.The binding effect of "Myth and Reality" aside, then, the real unity of this collection comes not in a concern with a single subject, or narrowly related subjects, but in the likelihood that the reader who has an interest in any one subject will naturally have one in several others as well, and that the interests themselves will overlap and combine.

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