The islands of Ireland are shaped by their relationships with land and sea. This book is a study of the various and changing ways in which literature has drawn the coast in lines that shape the contours of cultural experience. The literary and historical study of the sea has swelled in the last decade, as has an interest in the littoral and the archipelagic. Beginning with the early works of William Butler Yeats, this book travels through the diverse hydroscapes of Irish literature from the late nineteenth century to the present, framing writers and artists from James Joyce to Anne Enright in liquid, and maritime contexts. In doing so it suggests new planetary frames through which to read literature’s relationships with the sea and its margins. With readings of contemporary writers, including Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Kevin Barry, Seamus Heaney, Sinead Morrissey, and John Banville, and literary magazines, including The Bell, Atlantis, and Archipelago, this book is the first sustained study of Irish coastal literature.
