ABSTRACT
The Irish lyric tradition can be dated to the seventh and eighth centuries, but a florescence occurred from 800 to 1000, as our samples indicate. The two editions used by Joseph F. Eska as texts are: Gerard Murphy, Early Irish Lyrics, and James Carney, Medieval Irish Lyrics. Caedmon’s Hymn strikes the firm chord of Christian belief, and it is this new-found optimism that provides the joy that underlies much of the lyric tradition that follows. The lyric tradition of the British Isles falls into two linguistic classes: the Germanic, which is represented in the two early time phases of the English language; and the Celtic, represented by Irish and Welsh. The Old English poetry has been translated into Modern English, but the Middle English work has merely been edited. The Old English period supplies most of the oldest documents for Germanic languages.
