The Blaskets and Homer



The Great Blasket

When I began researching the literature which emanated from the Great Blasket I was intrigued by how this thoroughly Irish island could have the slightest connection to Homer, author of the Iliad and the Odyssey. The first three articles I browsed had Homeric references, I thought, there's got to be something in it, and so I delved deeper. J. V. Luce, in his article Homeric Qualities in the life and literature of the Great Blasket Island draws some very strong analogies between the social and cultural situation of the Blasket islanders and the early Ionians. He also highlights similarities in style, outlook and values between Blasket Island literature and the Homeric epics.The preeminent island writers, Thomas O Crohan, Maurice O Sullivan and Peig Sayers, had little schooling, but came from a culture strong in oral tradition.. Luce tells us they had neither the opportunity nor the inclination for book reading. O Sullivan described reading -  as a habit only recently acquired and seldom practised. Yet between 1929 - 1939 they produced three outstanding books. (See previous post on this blog).

North Itaca

All three writers tell of a lifestyle limited in experiences but rich in social fabric. O Crohan explains the practicalities of everyday life, the dwellings, the food, the fishing. Peig Sayers details the roller coaster emotions of the islanders as they faced their trials and tribulations. But it is Maurice O Sullivan's gusto and joie de vivre which most impresses Luce. He really enjoyed his life on the Great Blasket an island which, like Homer's Ithaca, was 'rough and rocky, but a good nurse of young men'.
And so begins the comparison with Homer.

A Blasket Island Cottage

The strong oral tradition of both communities produced literature, "where simile dominated over metaphor, and where wit and eloquence were in abundance". Luce goes further, he compares the societies and finds some very close parallels. Cast your eyes to the right, this is exactly what we've got, on Europe's other extremity fourteen centuries later.
Yet another similarity is the isolation and virtual autonomy which both societies enjoyed, while concurrently through language, culture and sentiment they both retained strong ties to their mother lands.
Then the Homeric qualities in the Blasket literature are identified. While not as lengthy or complex as  Homer's,  O Sullivan's similes come close in terms of aptness and liveliness
"I sat meditating on the world. Look, it is many a thought comes to the man who goes alone. With the power of his mind he brings the great world before his face, a thing which is not possible for the man who is fond of company".
And this from Homer in the Iliad "As the thought flashes in the mind of a man who, traversing much territory, thinks of things in the mind's awareness, I wish I were this place, or this', and imagines many things: so rapidly in her eagerness winged Hera, a goddess".
And now with the spotlight on dialogue, again O Sullivan and Homer are neck and neck.
O Sullivan when undergoing a physical examination for entry to the Guards is told by the examining guard that he is very thin, he replies
'Ask him', said I to George in Irish, 'if he had been stooping every morning to lift a big heavy hulk of a curragh  (canoe) and carrying it on his back to the water,his ribs rattling and doubling under the weight, would his own waist be as broad. And tell him further that when I get the beef and mutton into mine it will soon be as good as his".

Maurice O Sullivan

Now back to Homer -
'I could only wish, Eurymachus', replied Odysseus, 'that you and I could compete as labourers in the early summer when the days draw out, in a hay-field somewhere, I with a crooked reaping-hook and you with its fellow, so that we could test each other at work, with nothing to eat till well after dusk and plenty of grass to cut. Or we might have some oxen to drive, tawny great thoroughbreds, bursting with fodder and matched in age and pulling-power. It takes a lot to tire a pair like that, and I should choose a four-acre field filled with a clod that yielded nicely to the share. You'd see then whether I could cut a furrow straight ahead".
And so I can now almost imagine Homer wandering the Great Blasket and feeling quite at home, there really is much to compare in the stories of these remote islands many miles and centuries apart.

The Iliad - a Live Performance

Research process/strategies
As I mentioned in the opening sentence of this post, I was intrigued by the number of references to Homer from a simple "Blaskets" search and so I searched specifically for Homeric references and was handsomely rewarded.
Luce's article Homeric Qualities in the Life and Literature of the Great Blasket Island was the common thread running through the bibliographies of many of these results.
The first page of this 17 page article is available freely, but to view the work in its entirety I sourced it via the Swinburne Library database JSTOR.
This article was so in depth that it became my premiere source.
Another article I accessed, The last of his tribe: Maurice O Sullivan and the Blasket Islanders, also deals with the homeric comparisons, but to a lesser extend.
A third source, an English translation of Feiche Blian ag Fas, Twenty Years a Growing, which I happen to own, was indispensable as a reference for quotations.


Bibliography:

Luce, J V 1969, Homeric Qualities in the Life and Literature of the Great Blasket Island, JSTOR, viewed 16 October 2011, <http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/openurl?volume=16&date=1969&spage=151&issn=00173835&issue=2&>

Coman, B.J. 2005,The last of his tribe: Maurice O'Sullivan and the Blasket Islanders, General One File, viewed 15 October 2011,
<http://find.galegroup.com.ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/gtx/dispBasicSearch.do?prodId=ITOF&userGroupName=swinburne1>

O Sullivan, M 2000, Twenty years a growing, Oxford University Press, New York.