Dunarea De Jos University Galati Faculty of Letters Profile: Romanian English

De-constructed C Chulainn

Professor: Associate Professor Ioana Mohor-Ivan

Student: Goleanu Florin

Galati 2011

De-constructing Heroism: Nuala N Dhomhnaill

In this essay we will deal with C Chulainn I, from Selected Poems, 1988; a mythological poem written by Nuala N Dhomhnaill. Before going deep into the matter of discussion, we need to give some information about the author herself. Nuala N Dhomhnaill was born in Lancashire, England, to Irish parents; she had moved to Ireland, to live with an aunt of her in Cahiratrant, a village in the Corca Dhuibhne Gaeltacht near Ventry. She studied English and Irish at University College, Cork. Although she had been dealing and still is with daily tasks in English, she composes or writes (as you will) poetry in Irish. For Irish speakers, she is known as Nuala Rua or red Nuala (Maureen ORourke Murphy & James McKillop: 2006) Now, this must not surprise us, because, as we find in An Irish Literature Reader. Poetry, Prose, Drama, by Maureen ORourke Murphy & James McKillop (p. 401-402), she prefers Irish to English because Irish is the The Corpse that Sits Up and Talks Back. The reason for her accepting the Irish language in Poetry, even though she was interested in American Beat Poetry as well, is that we believe she was connected in one way or another to the Irish mythological background. She had somehow the feeling that the Irish myth is somehow a formidable spiritual resource. Now let us give a fragment from the heroic poem C Chulainn I:
Small dark rigid man C Chulainn who still lacks a lump on your shoulder who spent your first nine monthis in a cave swimming in your mothers fluid. Grave hunter whod satisfy no woman saying your father never went to a small seaside town like Ballybuion never made arms and instruments of war to give you so you could leap from the womb three minutes after the conception your hand full of spears holding five shields it is not we who injured you. We also came my ladies, out of wombs and the danger yet remains morning noon and evening that the ground will open and opened to us all will be Brufon na hAlmhaine Br na Binne or Teach Da Deige with its seven doors and hot cauldrons.

Dont threat us again with your youth again small poor dark man C Chulainn

What surprises us is the fact that this poem, in contradiction with what we said earlier, is a deconstructed one. This means that the poem is composed so that it will desintegrate the matter that the poem holds within it, as for example: Grave hunter/ whod satisfy no woman/ saying your father never went/ to a small seaside town. From this lines we can clearly see that the lyric voice denies what C Chulainn has done, or his fahter has done. He, C Chulainn , is a Grave hunter who could not (or would not) satisfy any woman. He is an impotent, he is the opposite of C Chulainn , he is the opposite of the hero. The images that the poem shows us are quite apocalyptical: morning noon and evening that the ground will open/ and opened to us all will be/ Brufon na hAlmhaine/ Br na Binne/ []/ with its seven doors and hot cauldrons. In our opinion, the seven doors may refer to the Seven Days when God created all that there is, or may refer, quite the contrary, to the seven signs of destruction, the seven signs that will be shown to mankind when the Antichrist will come and then, Judgement Day will take place. The hot cauldrons may refer to the plagues, cataclysms as the Apocalyps after Joan tells us: that there will be seven Angels, and each Angel will have a clarion, and to each Angel there wll be given a seal, and with that seal he will have the power to harm and kill those who are sinners, and so on. The first and final stanzas are very interesting from our point of view. Why? Because in the first stanza C Chulainn is named small dark rigid man/ C Chulainn , and in the final stanza small poor dark man. This can mean one thing and one thing only: that the C Chulainn from other heroic poems, or dramas, or proses is not the same here. He is only one, small dark man, he still has the force to threat us with his youth again. But, nevertheless, he is a mere old man. Time has said its word, and there is nothing he can do about it. The metaphors used by the author (or by the lyric voice?)1 are rough, beautiful and surprisng. The poem seems to be a some sort of dialogue between the voice and the reader. C Chulainn spent your first nine months in your mothers womb. So this seems to be a halving of someone, wether it is the voice, or the author herself or the reader. C Chulainn has been halved, divided. And, worse, he his a lump on your shoulder: this means that, actually, C Chulainn is either a protuberance on my or your shoulder, or that he is of no solid mass or shape whatsoever. Poor C Chulainn this is what we would say if it were for us to be ironic. But we are not ironic, the poem is very disturbing (in the good sense of the word). It is of a profound and utterly importance for us, the reader, to understand the sense, the hidden symbol that the poem carries within itself. It is a tragic poem, the tragedy of the character who cannot fight anymore, who cannot become feared, who cannot threat anymore

And with this we conclude our short essay about the poem: this is what de-constructivism and deconstructing heroism is, in our opinion, about. The regressiveness of C Chulainn , who from hero became nothing, a shadow, an abstract point in the real diagram of the imaginary. We hope that our arguments and examples made it clear that this is de-constructivism, that this is the time that was spent during your first nine month in a cave/ swimming in your mothers fluid.

Roland Barthes speaks about the issue: the writer is dead, the Author is dead: only by his death can the Opera take birth. And along the naissance of the Opera takes place the naissance of the Reader and the Critic as well.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Murphy, Maureen ORourke; McKillop, James (2006) An Irish Literature Reader. Poetry, Prose, Drama, Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, New York; Mohor-Ivan, Ioana (2011) The Celtic Paradigm in Modern Irish Writing, Dunarea de Jos University of Galati Faculty, of Letters.

Webliography

http://www.bibliaortodoxa.ro/noul-testament/4/Apocalipsa on the 29 of May, 2011