This book analyses the poetry of Ciaran Carson, a Northern-Irish writer. In particular, it discusses the tension between orality and textuality. The author shows how it operates in Carson’s major subjects: memory, city and history. Finally, the limits of this dialectic are sketched from an epistemological and metaphysical perspective.

Grzegorz Czemiel received his PhD at the University of Warsaw and teaches at Maria Curie-Sk?odowska University in Lublin (Poland). Specializing in contemporary Northern-Irish poetry, he also explores such topics as cartography, translation and urban studies, psychoanalysis and speculative realism in philosophy.

«I consider this study to be an erudite, sensitive and insightful reading of Ciaran Carson’s poetry.» (Ma?gorzata Grzegorzewska, University of Warsaw) «With his pioneering, up-to-date study, founded in a variety of theoretical sources, Grzegorz Czemiel establishes himself as an acute literary scholar, displaying creative temperament and intellectual inquisitiveness, well-versed in the most important currents of today’s humanities, and offering us often ingenious and thoughtful interpretations of modern literary texts.» (Jerzy Jarniewicz, University of ?ód?)

Contents: Poetry – Northern Ireland – Oral tradition – Writing – Deconstruction – Phenomenology – The dialectics of orality and textuality – The three mazes: city, memory and history – The limits of knowledge and the space of the poem.