All anthologies by definition present a particular perspective on their material: the selection made, the choice of one piece rather than another, already imply a programme, a critical viewpoint. Anthologies of Irish literature, notoriously, tend to foreground a historical and political narrative to which the literature bears witness.
In Ferocious Humanism, W. J. McCormack wants to disrupt or interrupt that narrative, not in the direction of "pure" literature or aesthetic wholeness, but rather towards a fragmentary, dissenting tradition in Irish poetry, poems and poets that do not lend themselves so readily to "a bogus cultural unity".
For him, it seems, ferocious dissent is almost a good in itself; importantly, though, it is qualified by the humanism also mentioned in his oxymoronic title. The poems he values, as he puts it himself, are those that "shun the middle ground of conformity while putting humanity . . . at the centre of their vision".
Whatever about the merits of this as a vision of Irish literary history, its practical outcome is a very stimulating and interesting anthology, which has all the qualities of such an individual and original approach. McCormack's method is a lot less exclusive than his principles might suggest. Most of the major Irish poets are here; it's just that, valuably, the perspective under which they are presented is different.
The anthology proclaims its revisionary (not revisionist) credentials at the start, with the very strong emphasis given to Swift as poet; it becomes apparent at once that satire is one of the modes McCormack most favours.
A particular merit is the equal treatment accorded to Irish language poetry, some in the original, with translation, some in translation only. Thus we get all of The Midnight Court and Caoineadh Airt Ui Laoghaire, along with a substantial selection from Eoghan O Tuairisc, in Irish and English. Only through this breaking down of the linguistic barrier can the full richness of Irish poetry be realised.
McCormack's criteria also extend to the poets of 1920s/1930s modernism: Brian Coffey, Denis Devlin, Samuel Beckett are well represented. This again is the fruit of an important contemporary rediscovery.
One valuable aspect of the work is that the anthologist is not afraid of longer poems: as well as those mentioned above, The Great Hunger and The Ballad of Reading Gaol are given in their entirety, to name but two. This is part of a general thrust in the anthology away from the lyric note with which Irish poetry, and poetry in general, is associated in many minds. McCormack prefers, in general, poetry that is less inward, harsher, more argumentative.
In the case of James Joyce, this preference leads him to include a poem which Joyce did not write and which should properly be attributed to Oliver Gogarty, but whose caustic, satirical subject matter suits McCormack's general thesis.
A similar harshness appears on the book's cover, which features Countess Markievicz in full military regalia, a revolver in hand. In this instance, as well as here and there in the volume itself, the ferocity has forged well ahead of the humanism.
Terence Killeen is a critic, and an Irish Times journalist