This book is good if you're interested in old Irish and Celtic mythology. However general audiences will probably be frustrated by dissonant storyline and the confusing lists of names and locations. The story's excitement did not live up to my expectations. It is hard to follow and its hard to make sense of what the characters are doing. It seems more like a story told by a bard to an audience of ancient Irish men and women than a story for modern readers. The translator kept true to the original text, but lost readibility along the way.

Kinsella does an excellent job of bringing the ancient epic to life. You can almost imagine an old Irish bard reciting the tale in front of a peat fire. Kinsella includes not only the Tain, but stories leading up to the Tain and a brief story about how the Tain was once again learned:
"If this your royal rock
were your own self mac Roich
halted here with sages
searching for a roof
Cuailnge we'd recover
plain and perfect Fergus."

The above was spoken by the poet Muirgen at Fergus's grave, and summoned the spirit of Fergus to... Oh, just buy it and read it.

The epic of the Tain is starting to creep back into our lives. Only recently a software company calle Bungie included many Irish myths as a foundation for one of their most popular games to date. The Tain is also once again being performed by storytellers and it's an excellent tale either oral or written. On a side note, the pronunciation guide is a bit lacking, you'll have to do some leg work to get the proper pronuciation of some Irish words and names.

This is a literary masterpiece to match the 5th(?) century manuscript: action, adventure, deceit, love, death, life, marriage, and hurling! What more could I ask for? Kinsella manages to pull you into the past of Ireland without loosing the flavor and excitement of the original epic. No pansy 19th century Victorian mush here, Mrs. Brown. This is the raw thing, the Irish story of how a hero was created. I grew tired of reading German translations of Old Irish stories, for lack of anything worthwhile in English. Too frequently, translators spend their time getting the exact meaning of each word, only to loose the beauty and flavor of the original melange. Kinsella comes through like a mighty warrior of the Uliad out of the distant past. Slainte!

I have been a fan of Thomas Kinsella since about 1983, but his work has been hard to find; early poems out of print, later works published mainly by his own small press (Peppercanister Press) with occasional collections from Oxford UP or Wake Forest University Press. This edition should effectively rewrite the standard story of Irish poetry and allow readers to encounter one of the great Irish poets. Kinsella's poetry is difficult but rewards effort; he is darker and larger in scope than, say, Seamus Heaney. Up through the late sixties, Kinsella wrote in a strict formal mode; then he broke into an intense free verse under the influence of American writers, especially Williams, Pound, and (briefly) Lowell. Poems like "One," "The Messenger," "A Technical Supplement," and the entire "Notes from the Land of the Dead" series are like nothing else in modern literature.

Caveats:

1) Oxford has done a miserable job with the production of this book; the pages are too small and the lack of a hardback edition is a scandal for a poet of this stature. A collected Kinsella should include the illustrations in the limited editions of books like "A Technical Supplement."

2) Kinsella has apparently edited his earlier work for this edition, I think for the worse. Mainly he's cut some later poems down (especially in "Nightwalker" and "Notes from the land of the Dead"), taking out some particularly disjunctive moments. The result it still impressive but I prefer the earlier versions; to read those, readers will have to get their hands on out-of-print editions from Wake Forest, Dolmen, or Knopf.

This is a very useful introduction to Irish poetry for people who do not have any Irish. It also has a very useful general introduction to the period and to each poem/poet; for more elaborate general reading I'd recommend O Tuama's "Repossessions: Selected Essays on the Irish Literary Heritage".

However, I can hardly believe it is out of print: I saw lots of copies for sale in bookshops in Ireland: the anthology is used for classes at University College Cork.

I find it singularly difficult to believe that Duanaire is out of print, because it is quite ubiquitous at the bookshops of any standing in Ireland. Duanaire includes the most important poems in Irish from the dark centuries of the Penal times, as well as a thorough introduction in two languages. I cannot say anything about the English translations, as I prefer not to read them; the Irish version of the introduction is not only interesting and well-written, but also good Irish - not the customary "excuse" or "alibi" Irish you would axpect in such a context.

I have little objections to the selection; however I would not have considered it a waste of space to include Merriman's "Midnight Court" in its entirety. I do not understand why the fragment of Humphrey O'Sullivan's diary was included, as it is not poetry.

The Irish texts vary, of course; most of them are definitely too difficult even for the intermediate learner. However, the Irish version of the Introduction could interest a learner, too.