History and terminology in the Auraicept na n-Éces.
Published: 2006
Language: eng
Number of pages: 210
ISBN-13: 9780494219829
Description: The place of the Auraicept na nEces in early Irish literature, while recognized as playing a key role in the development of medieval ideas regarding grammar in Ireland, has not been questioned with regard to its specific importance for the poetic tradition of the time. As a didactic text drawing on the Christian textual culture of grammar and rhetoric introduced in Ireland during the fifth, sixth and seventh centuries, the  Auraicept presents an amalgamation of Gaelic poetic culture and Latin grammatical culture. This thesis, after an introduction to the material in chapter one, gives the historical context in which the Auraicept was written and cultivated between the seventh and sixteenth centuries in chapter two. It analyses the central poetic ideas found in its earliest stratum in chapter three and in chapter four it analyses the tropes of explication added in later centuries. Chapter five then turns to the wider context of literary culture in Ireland, examining how the Auraicept interacts with other texts, didactic or not. A final bibliography presents the manuscripts, editions, translations and secondary materials used in this thesis. This broad consideration of the Auraicept's context and essential elements illustrates its primary concern teaching the basic principles of Gaelic prosody and shows that its use must be seen as serving a foundational role in the poetic education of the medieval  fili.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-01, Section: A, page: 0182.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Toronto, 2006.

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