Deireadh an Fhoghair and the Environment

Petra Johana Poncarová

FULL TEXT

ABSTRACT (en)

This essay seeks to expand critical engagement with the novel Deireadh an Fhoghair (1979) by Tormod Caimbeul by focusing on its environmental preoccupations. It discusses the way Caimbeul draws on traditional features of Gaelic literature about places and transforms them and examines the relation between people and places, depictions of the sea and the moor, and the interaction of the characters with non-human life, especially with farm animals. Finally, it turns to the questions of recycling and renewal and to the novel’s own viability in terms of readership.

KEYWORDS (en)

Tormod Caimbeul (Norman Campbell), Deireadh an Fhoghair (The End of Autumn), Scottish Gaelic fiction, Outer Hebrides, moor, sea, farm animals, place, naming

DOI

https://doi.org/10.14712/2571452X.2023.66.5

SOURCES

Bateman, Meg. “The Autobiography in Scottish Gaelic.” In The Edinburgh History of Scottish Literature, Vol. 3: Modern Transformations: New Identities, edited by Ian Brown, 225-30. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007.

Caimbeul, Tormod. Deireadh an Fhoghair. Dùn Èideann: Chambers, 1979. Cresswell, Tim. Place: A Short Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004.

Gillis, Alan. “Names for Nameless Things: The Poetics of Place Names.” In Modern Irish and Scottish Poetry, edited by Peter Mackay, Edna Longley, and Fran Brearton, 204-21. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Hubbard, Phil, Rob Kitchin and Gill Valentine, eds. Key Thinkers on Space and Place. London: SAGE Publications, 2004.

Lippard, Lucy. The Lure of the Local: Sense of Place in a Multicentered Society. New York: The New Press, 1997.

MacAulay, Donald. “Deireadh an Fhoghair.” Scottish Gaelic Studies 14 (1983): 138-40. Hugh MacDiarmid, “Scotland Small?” in Hugh MacDiarmid, Selected Poetry, ed. Alan Riach and Michael Grieve (Manchester: Carcanet, 1992) 198.

MacAulay, Donald. “Introduction.” In Nua-bhàrdachd Ghàidhlig / Modern Scottish Gaelic Poems, edited by Donald MacAulay, 46-68. Edinburgh: Canongate Books, 1995.

MacDiarmid, Hugh. “Scotland Small?” In Hugh MacDiarmid, Selected Poetry, edited by Alan Riach and Michael Grieve, 198. Manchester: Carcanet, 1992.

MacDonald, Norman M. “Gaelic Fiction” [review of Deireadh an Fhoghair and Amannan Sgialachdan Goirid]. Books in Scotland 5 (1979): 29-30.

MacInnes, John. Dùthchas nan Gàidheal: Collected Essays of John MacInnes. Ed. Michael Newton. Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2006.

Mackay, Peter. “Museums of Gaelic Literature” [conference presentation abstract]. Third World Congress of Scottish Literatures, Charles University, Prague, 24-28 June 2023. https://scotlit2020.ff.cuni.cz/peter-mackay/.

MacLean, Sorley. “Poetry of the Clearances.” In Ris a’ Bhruthaich: The Criticism and Prose Writings of Sorley MacLean, edited by William Gillies, 48-74. Stornoway: Acair, 1997.

MacLeod, Michelle, and Moray Watson. “In the Shadow of the Bard: The Short Story, Novel and Drama in Gaelic Since the Early Twentieth Century.” In The Edinburgh History of Scottish Literature, Vol. 3: Modern Transformations: New Identities, edited by Ian Brown, 273-82. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007.

MacThòmais, Ruaraidh. “Deireadh an Fhoghair.” Gairm 114 (Spring 1981): 187.

Ní Annracháin, Máire. “Deireadh an Fhoghair.” Litríocht na Gaeltachta: Léachtaí Cholm Cille 19 (1989): 168-191.

Poncarová, Petra Johana. “Addressing Devastation in the Gaelic Literature of the Clearances,” The Bottle Imp 31 (March 2023). https://www.thebottleimp.org.uk/ 2023/03/addressing-devastation-in-gaelic-literature-of-the-clearances/.

Poncarová, Petra Johana. “The Best Scottish Gaelic Novel? Reception and Analysis of Tormod Caimbeul’s Deireadh an Fhoghair.” In Imagining Scottishness: European and Domestic Representations, edited by Aniela Korzeniowska and Izabela Szymańska, 304-14. Warsaw: Semper, 2017.

Tilley, Christopher. A Phenomenology of Landscape: Places, Paths and Monuments. Oxford: Berg, 1994.

Thomson, Derick. Creachadh na Clàrsaich / Plundering the Harp. Edinburgh: MacDonald, 1983.

Tuan, Yi-Fu. Topophilia: A Study of Environmental Perception, Attitudes, and Values. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1974.