Poem

The Merfolk and Literature

Title	The Merfolk and Literature
Author	Paul Muldoon

Instances of Publication

A published appearance of this poem.

Collection/Anthology	Year of Publication	Medium	View Details
The Fifty Minute Mermaid	2007	Print Collection	View Details

Translations

Connected translations of this poem.

Title	Author	Collection/Anthology	Year	View Details
A Pity We're Not Frogs	Pearse Hutchinson	An Crann faoi Bhláth: The Flowering Tree	1991	View Details

Publication Instance Details #775

Collection/Anthology Details

Collection/Anthology	The Fifty Minute Mermaid
Date of Publication	2007
Publisher	The Gallery Press (Ireland)
Page Number(s)	39

Publication Overview

Translation	Is Multilingual	Explicit Irish Context?	Ekphrasis	Has Paratext?	Reference to News, Media or Technology
Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No

Details

Human Rights Issues	Displacement/Forced Migration Indigenous Rights (incl. culture & language)
Irish Context	Emigration (from Ireland) Irish Language/Culture Specific Irish place or place-name mentioned Great Famine (Ireland)
Languages	English
Original Language	Irish
Original Poem	Na Murúcha agus an Litríocht
Original Author	Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill
Genre	Part Of Lyric Sequence
Medium	Print Collection
Notes	This sequence of poems, 'Na Murúcha a Thriomnaigh', makes use of the international folk tale of the mermaid to construct an allegorical world in which the merpeople have left the water and now live uneasily among humankind on earth. In this poem, the speaker describes how the mermaids didn't create their own literature or write about their lives under the sea. This is explained by the unsentimental acknowledgement that there is 'no going back'. There are many references to the life and literature of Great Blasket Islands in this poem. The Great Famine and Irish cultural loss is often understood to be implicit in this sequence of poems.

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