Translating Brendan Kennelly’s Poetic prose: The Crooked Cross or the Claustrophobic Representation of a Classic-Irish Odyssey

Abstract

The aim of my article is to highlight the presence of some classical epic topoi in Kennelly’s The Crooked Cross, such as the theme of heroism, emigration, exile, as well as of a sort of pagan religion. I will underline how these themes are here developed in a way that makes this short novel an example of a claustrophobically authentic Irish epic, not so intellectually and systematically built as in Joyce’s Odyssey, though not less classic and universal. The microcosm of the Irish village here represented, with its oral tradition, its folkloric and legendary material, supplies a fertile soil of cultural, literary and stylistic interrelations suggesting an interesting underlying crosscultural communication. I will also focus on some of the linguistic features of this work and on the problematic aspects to be faced in the process of translation into another language/culture.