Ireland

Ireland "is a country in the Atlantic Ocean, and the Irish Sea lies between the country and Great Britain. Around the 4th century B.C., Celts arrived in the country from Gaul and created a civilization that led the country into the Christian Era. Saint Patrick introduced Christianity in 432, and monasteries, much like our contemporary universities, sprung up and became centers of learning that attracted intellectuals and the pious alike. [1] Ireland appears in Wallace Stevens' poem "Our Stars Come from Ireland" (1950), from The Auroras of Autumn collection. Eleanor Cook states that the first section of the poem is a tribute to Tom Greeley (1893-1967), who was a friend, a writer, and the director of the Irish National Gallery. [2] The rest of the poem expands the tribute to include all of Ireland and "nights full of the geen stars from Ireland, . . .. / The whole habit of mind is changed by them, / These Gaeled and fitful-fangled darknesses / Made suddenly luminous . . ." (ii, 2-6). [3]
==Notes==
1. Ireland
2. Cook 255.
3. Stevens in Kermode and Richardson 389-90.
==References==
Cook, Eleanor. A Reader's Guide to Wallace Stevens. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2007. Print.
Ireland
Stevens, Wallace. "Our Stars Come from Ireland."  Wallace Stevens: Collected Poetry and Prose. Ed. Frank Kermode and Joan Richardson. New York: Library of America, 1997. 389-90. Print.