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Penguin’s Week-Long St. Patrick’s Day Celebration

Mon, 03/16/2009

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Penguin Is Celebrating All Things Irish

Once per year on March 17th, America goes GREEN - and I’m not talking recycling (although at Penguin we do believe it's important to recycle every day).

This year the Penguin Blog will have a week long ode to Ireland featuring Irish current affairs, history, cusine, art, and, most importantly our grand Irish authors and books!

Without more ado,
We offer you this history of Ireland.
But please be assured
That all that we've heard
Is almost certainly true!*
(*An attempt at a limerick-like-poem by Sarah Christensen Fu, Online Content Coordinator. Do you think YOU can do better?! Leave your limerick as a comment on this blog post.)

A History of Ireland (and Penguin authors) by Clinton Wilson, Online Customer Retention Manager

Driven by a powerful, if precarious, national pride and a continually reawakened mythology, Ireland has not only left lasting works of literature but-as historians from Kenneth Clark to Thomas Cahill have revealed-they single-handedly kept Western civilization from sinking irrevocably into the dark abyss of illiteracy.

Having the distinction of owning the oldest Western vernacular literature (after Greek and Latin), Ireland's pagan mythology stems back to an ancient race of sorcerers that influenced a later Celtic mysticism and remained an important part of the culture even after St. Patrick's mass Christianization of the land. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, Ireland's unique geographical position, an island at the edge of Europe, left them as preservers of Christian culture while Europe fell into the hands of Germanic invaders.

Wandering Irish monks realized the Christianization of Europe as they ventured out from remote monasteries. But the Irish scholarly, religious influence declined with a series of invasions and settlement of the Norse and the Anglo-Normans in the 9th-12th centuries; monasteries were destroyed and plundered, leaving Ireland vulnerable to contentious centuries of British, Pope-endorsed settlements. Gaelic, the ancient Irish language, deteriorated and almost entirely disappeared as Irish writers turned their pens to social issues-written in English-in the 18th century.

Jonathan Swift, in addition to introducing us to Lilliputians and Yahoos, perfected the art of political satire and comically questioned English political policies -- shocking readers with his outrageous "Modest Proposal" to cannibalize Ireland's children to solve its economic problems.

Synopsis of Gulliver's Travels:
An authoritative edition of literature's most brilliant satire

Shipwrecked castaway Lemuel Gulliver's encounters with the petty, diminutive Lilliputians, the crude giants of Brobdingnag, the abstracted scientists of Laputa, the philosophical Houyhnhnms, and the brutish Yahoos give him new, bitter insights into human behavior. Swift's fantastic and subversive book remains supremely relevant in our own age of distortion, hypocrisy, and irony.

Edmund Burke proposed more practical solutions to troubling socio-economic concerns and developed some of the most important political theories of his day, influencing British opinion on everything from Indian colonization to the French and American Revolutions.

Synopsis of The Portable Edmund Burke:
The intellectual wellspring of modern political conservatism, Edmund Burke is also considered a significant figure in aesthetic theory and cultural studies. As a member of the House of Commons during the late eighteenth century, Burke shook Parliament with his powerful defense of the American Revolution and the rights of persecuted Catholics in England and Ireland; his indictment of the English rape of the Indian subcontinent; and, most famously, his denouncement of English Jacobin sympathizers during the French Revolution. The Portable Edmund Burke is the fullest one- volume survey of Burke's thought, with sections devoted to his writings on history and culture, politics and society, the American Revolution, Ireland, colonialism and India, and the French Revolution. This volume also includes excerpts from his letters and an informative Introduction surveying Burke's life, ideas, and his reception and influence in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Irish dramatists Oliver Goldsmith and Richard Brinsley Sheridan used the stage to voice their cultural commentaries and developed the comedy of manners dramatic form that would be picked up and sharpened by another important Irish playwright, Oscar Wilde, a century later. Dion Boucicault-dubiously called the Irish Shakespeare-dominated the stage in the 19th century, and took his expression to America where he made a significant impact on the form and content of early American theater, and helped pass the first copyright laws.

Synopsis of The Best of Oscar Wilde:
An Extraordinary Volume for Fans and Students.

Including The Importance of Being Earnest, An Ideal Husband, A Woman of No Importance, Lady Windermere's Fan, and Salomé, this collection showcases Wilde's brilliance and timeless wit.

Posted by: Sarah Christensen Fu, Online Content Coordinator

St. Patrick's Day, History of Ireland Penguin Bloggers, Sarah Christensen Fu, Clinton Wilson