On a The Irish Times article and a brief original poem
From the article:
“Irish modernism contains its own comment on the fictionality, or stupefying reality of England in Samuel Beckett’s riff on London place names from Waiting for Godot: “Feckham Peckham Fulham Clapham”.
Joe Cleary, a professor at Yale University and previously a professor at NUI Maynooth, has been an authoritative and stimulating guide to modernism, and to 20th-century Irish literature and culture generally for the last two decades. His work was shaped by the alignment between Irish studies and postcolonial studies in the 1990s.”
I have not directly read Cleary’s books, but according to the article, he seems to tap into the Palestinian intellectual Edward Said’s idea in his book Orientalism about a connection between modernism in art and imperialism. In graduate school, I was surprised Said’s book was included on the reading list for a course focused on Irish literature. I guess colonialism is colonialism all over the word.
Like many poetic writers, Beckett liked to play with words. You may find it annoying or amusing.
A poem
“Neighbor” by yours truly
Had a brief chat;
How ’bout that?
With a neighbor;
He seemed intelligent.
Knew what he meant.
“Slowly but surely,” he said.
Good advice.
Edelweiss.