A Chastened Communion

Know about the book -

A Chastened Communion is written by Andrew J. Auge and published by Syracuse University Press. It's available with International Standard Book Number or ISBN identification 0815652399 (ISBN 10) and 9780815652397 (ISBN 13).

A Chastened Communion traces a new path through the well-traversed field of modern Irish poetry by revealing how critical engagement with Catholicism shapes the trajectory of the poetic careers of Austin Clarke, Patrick Kavanagh, John Montague, Seamus Heaney, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Paul Durcan, and Paula Meehan. Underlying their divergent poetic styles and thematic concerns, Auge discerns a common pattern. He shows how a demythologizing critique of some elemental features of Irish Catholicism—the sacraments of confession and the Eucharist, the pilgrimages to holy wells and Lough Derg, the veneration of the Blessed Virgin, the imperative to self-sacrifice, the narrowly patriarchal nature of the institution—elicit, for each of these poets, a radical reshaping of these traditional religious phenomena. Auge provides compelling new readings of major Irish poets and establishes a basis for distinguishing modern Irish poetry from its Anglophone counterparts.