Martin McKinsey | University of New Hampshire (original) (raw)
Uploads
Papers by Martin McKinsey
Ariel-a Review of International English Literature, Jul 1, 2004
Translation Review, 2017
Reviewed by Martin McKinseyA poem is never finished, only abandoned. Or so the saying goes. Only ... more Reviewed by Martin McKinseyA poem is never finished, only abandoned. Or so the saying goes. Only I’m not at all sure the Greek-Egyptian poet C. P. Cavafy would agree. Cavafy was someone who was hap...
Ariel-a Review of International English Literature, 2004
I. Approaches "Since 1976," writes Peter Mackridge in his book The Modern Greek Languag... more I. Approaches "Since 1976," writes Peter Mackridge in his book The Modern Greek Language, "Modern Greek diglossia has more or less ceased to exist" (1985: 11). But while diglossia as a generative feature in Greek linguistic life may play a drastically reduced or nonexistent role today, evidence of its past impact, as Mackridge's book amply shows, abounds in contemporary colloquial Greek. Moreover, diglossia survives as a permanent feature of much of modern Greek literature, and as such continues to affect how Greek readers respond to specific literary works. These responses can be as baffling to the foreigner as are the subtleties of the Language Question itself. I remember, a few years ago, reading a favorite Cavafy poem aloud to a young Greek friend: IsI±I„I®I½I„I·IƒI± IƒI‡IµI´IŒI½ I±I½IIƒI„I¹I?I‚ IoI±I¹ I€II½I·I‚. At the time I too was "all but broke and on the streets" (as I would provisionally translate that wonderful opening) of Athens, so t...
... 1 Kimberly Bentson, discussing a similar process of “simultaneous naming and unnaming” in an ... more ... 1 Kimberly Bentson, discussing a similar process of “simultaneous naming and unnaming” in an African-American context, quotes Malcolm X: “As long as you allow them to call you what they wish you don't know who you ... Of Hector, bridler of horses, / Achilles, Aeneas, Ulysses [. ...
In 1999, the author worked as Writer-in-Residence at Princeton's Program in Hellenic Studies ... more In 1999, the author worked as Writer-in-Residence at Princeton's Program in Hellenic Studies with Cypriot poet Kyriakos Haralambidis on English versions of his work. The essay is based on the journal kept by the translator during that month-long collaboration. It explores the dynamics of the poet-translator relationship as it emerged in daily work sessions, as well as the geopolitical realities that loom over all such cultural transactions--above all those involving a "minor language" like Cypriot Greek and a dominant global language like American English.
From the moment I began The Wanderings of Oisin," wrote W B.Yeats of the title poem of his 1... more From the moment I began The Wanderings of Oisin," wrote W B.Yeats of the title poem of his 1889 collection,"my subject-matter became Irish" (Poems' 589). By his own account, Yeats struck out in this new poetic direction largely at the urging of the returned Fenian exile John O'Leary, even though such a move meant leaving behind "Arcady and the India of romance," which up until then he had "preferred to all countries" (Ellmann 13). In place of those well-thumbed tropes of British Hellenism and Orientalism, the young poet now began to avail himself of the rich but still largely untapped stock of legends and mythological figures out of Ireland's own past. Thus the gleaming visions of Greek antiquity that had inspired so many of Yeats's early models, especially his beloved Shelley, fell victim to the expediencies of cultural nationalism. Indeed, for the first two and a half decades of Yeats's writing life, Hellenism left scarcely a ...
Ariel, Jul 1, 2004
... Naipaul, VS The Middle Passage. London: Picador, 1995. Osborne, Robin. Going Back to Sea. T... more ... Naipaul, VS The Middle Passage. London: Picador, 1995. Osborne, Robin. Going Back to Sea. Times Literary Supplement 18 June 1999: 35. ... Rowlinson, Matthew. The Ideological Moment of Tennyson's 'Ulysses.' Victorian Poetry. 30.34 (Autumn-Winter 1992): 265276. ...
Η Ποίηση του Κράματος: Μοδερνισμός και Διαπολιτισμικότητα στο Έργο του Καβάφη, 2000
English version of a talk delivered in Greek at a 1997 symposium in Nicosia, Cyprus, and later pu... more English version of a talk delivered in Greek at a 1997 symposium in Nicosia, Cyprus, and later published as "Αναζητώντας τους Βαρβάρους" in Η Ποίηση του Κράματος: Μοδερνισμός και Διαπολιτισμικότητα στο Έργο του Καβάφη [Poetry of the Mix: Modernism and Transculturalism in the Work of Cavafy]. Ed. Mihalis Pieris. Iraklion, Greece: UP of Crete, 2000. Later incorporated into Hellenism and the Postcolonial Imagination: Yeats, Cavafy, Walcott (2010).
Cavafy Forum (University of Michigan), 2010
This fragment was offered to the Cavafy Forum at the University of Michigan for the same reason m... more This fragment was offered to the Cavafy Forum at the University of Michigan for the same reason most of it was edited out of the introduction to my book on Hellenism and the Postcolonial Imagination: the bulk of it deals, as the rest of the book does not, with the confrontation between British Hellenism and modern Greece in the early twentieth century. Historicizing Cavafy's "Philhellene" in both its ancient and modern contexts means locating it and the character it depicts directly over this seismic fault. The global turn I take in the final third reflects the broader aims of the book's introduction, which asks the question: "As [hegemonic culture] migrates through the filaments of global trade; as it is received, sifted, assimilated and redeployed by individuals and societies in the provincial outlands of empire, what sorts of changes does this culture, 'metropolitan' culture, undergo? How is its meaning altered or deferred in the colonial or neo-colonial periphery?" A version of this piece was presented at the 2009 MGSA Symposium in Vancouver.
In-Between: Essays and Studies in Literary Criticism, 1997
This essay looks at two early essays on Shakespeare by Greek-Egyptian poet Constantine Cavafy, as... more This essay looks at two early essays on Shakespeare by Greek-Egyptian poet Constantine Cavafy, as well as his unpublished poem "King Claudius." The critical approach is postcolonial: Cavafy at that time (the 1890s) had recently begun employment with the British colonial administration in Alexandria, and I find traces of his subject position not only in the revisionist "Hamlet" proposed by the poem, but in the relativist positions implied by the essays. The essay began as a seminar paper for Arthur Kirsch's graduate course "Shakespeare Our Contemporary" at the University of Virginia. It was my first published essay on Cavafy and the first to employ the critical terms of postcolonial theory. The translations are my own.
Ariel: A Review of International English Literature, Jul 1, 2004
![Research paper thumbnail of [Mousa] and Muse: Notes From a Collaboration](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/56636761/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](The Yale Journal of Criticism, 2003
Twentieth Century Literature, 2002
... John Gogarty (85)-it was not in epic form but in a form that would characterize virtually all... more ... John Gogarty (85)-it was not in epic form but in a form that would characterize virtually all his mature work: "lyric poetry . .. ... John Gogarty (85)-it was not in epic form but in a form that would characterize virtually all his mature work: "lyric poetry . .. ...
Journal of Modern Greek Studies, 1990
Looks at the linguistic "taboo-breaking" of Engonopoulos's early poetry, specifically his mixing ... more Looks at the linguistic "taboo-breaking" of Engonopoulos's early poetry, specifically his mixing of high (Katharevousa), standard (Dimotiki) and argot in a manner guaranteed to annoy linguistic purists of any stripe. Draws a parallel with the "macaronic" style of Vladimir Nabokov's English.
Book Reviews by Martin McKinsey
Ariel-a Review of International English Literature, Jul 1, 2004
Translation Review, 2017
Reviewed by Martin McKinseyA poem is never finished, only abandoned. Or so the saying goes. Only ... more Reviewed by Martin McKinseyA poem is never finished, only abandoned. Or so the saying goes. Only I’m not at all sure the Greek-Egyptian poet C. P. Cavafy would agree. Cavafy was someone who was hap...
Ariel-a Review of International English Literature, 2004
I. Approaches "Since 1976," writes Peter Mackridge in his book The Modern Greek Languag... more I. Approaches "Since 1976," writes Peter Mackridge in his book The Modern Greek Language, "Modern Greek diglossia has more or less ceased to exist" (1985: 11). But while diglossia as a generative feature in Greek linguistic life may play a drastically reduced or nonexistent role today, evidence of its past impact, as Mackridge's book amply shows, abounds in contemporary colloquial Greek. Moreover, diglossia survives as a permanent feature of much of modern Greek literature, and as such continues to affect how Greek readers respond to specific literary works. These responses can be as baffling to the foreigner as are the subtleties of the Language Question itself. I remember, a few years ago, reading a favorite Cavafy poem aloud to a young Greek friend: IsI±I„I®I½I„I·IƒI± IƒI‡IµI´IŒI½ I±I½IIƒI„I¹I?I‚ IoI±I¹ I€II½I·I‚. At the time I too was "all but broke and on the streets" (as I would provisionally translate that wonderful opening) of Athens, so t...
... 1 Kimberly Bentson, discussing a similar process of “simultaneous naming and unnaming” in an ... more ... 1 Kimberly Bentson, discussing a similar process of “simultaneous naming and unnaming” in an African-American context, quotes Malcolm X: “As long as you allow them to call you what they wish you don't know who you ... Of Hector, bridler of horses, / Achilles, Aeneas, Ulysses [. ...
In 1999, the author worked as Writer-in-Residence at Princeton's Program in Hellenic Studies ... more In 1999, the author worked as Writer-in-Residence at Princeton's Program in Hellenic Studies with Cypriot poet Kyriakos Haralambidis on English versions of his work. The essay is based on the journal kept by the translator during that month-long collaboration. It explores the dynamics of the poet-translator relationship as it emerged in daily work sessions, as well as the geopolitical realities that loom over all such cultural transactions--above all those involving a "minor language" like Cypriot Greek and a dominant global language like American English.
From the moment I began The Wanderings of Oisin," wrote W B.Yeats of the title poem of his 1... more From the moment I began The Wanderings of Oisin," wrote W B.Yeats of the title poem of his 1889 collection,"my subject-matter became Irish" (Poems' 589). By his own account, Yeats struck out in this new poetic direction largely at the urging of the returned Fenian exile John O'Leary, even though such a move meant leaving behind "Arcady and the India of romance," which up until then he had "preferred to all countries" (Ellmann 13). In place of those well-thumbed tropes of British Hellenism and Orientalism, the young poet now began to avail himself of the rich but still largely untapped stock of legends and mythological figures out of Ireland's own past. Thus the gleaming visions of Greek antiquity that had inspired so many of Yeats's early models, especially his beloved Shelley, fell victim to the expediencies of cultural nationalism. Indeed, for the first two and a half decades of Yeats's writing life, Hellenism left scarcely a ...
Ariel, Jul 1, 2004
... Naipaul, VS The Middle Passage. London: Picador, 1995. Osborne, Robin. Going Back to Sea. T... more ... Naipaul, VS The Middle Passage. London: Picador, 1995. Osborne, Robin. Going Back to Sea. Times Literary Supplement 18 June 1999: 35. ... Rowlinson, Matthew. The Ideological Moment of Tennyson's 'Ulysses.' Victorian Poetry. 30.34 (Autumn-Winter 1992): 265276. ...
Η Ποίηση του Κράματος: Μοδερνισμός και Διαπολιτισμικότητα στο Έργο του Καβάφη, 2000
English version of a talk delivered in Greek at a 1997 symposium in Nicosia, Cyprus, and later pu... more English version of a talk delivered in Greek at a 1997 symposium in Nicosia, Cyprus, and later published as "Αναζητώντας τους Βαρβάρους" in Η Ποίηση του Κράματος: Μοδερνισμός και Διαπολιτισμικότητα στο Έργο του Καβάφη [Poetry of the Mix: Modernism and Transculturalism in the Work of Cavafy]. Ed. Mihalis Pieris. Iraklion, Greece: UP of Crete, 2000. Later incorporated into Hellenism and the Postcolonial Imagination: Yeats, Cavafy, Walcott (2010).
Cavafy Forum (University of Michigan), 2010
This fragment was offered to the Cavafy Forum at the University of Michigan for the same reason m... more This fragment was offered to the Cavafy Forum at the University of Michigan for the same reason most of it was edited out of the introduction to my book on Hellenism and the Postcolonial Imagination: the bulk of it deals, as the rest of the book does not, with the confrontation between British Hellenism and modern Greece in the early twentieth century. Historicizing Cavafy's "Philhellene" in both its ancient and modern contexts means locating it and the character it depicts directly over this seismic fault. The global turn I take in the final third reflects the broader aims of the book's introduction, which asks the question: "As [hegemonic culture] migrates through the filaments of global trade; as it is received, sifted, assimilated and redeployed by individuals and societies in the provincial outlands of empire, what sorts of changes does this culture, 'metropolitan' culture, undergo? How is its meaning altered or deferred in the colonial or neo-colonial periphery?" A version of this piece was presented at the 2009 MGSA Symposium in Vancouver.
In-Between: Essays and Studies in Literary Criticism, 1997
This essay looks at two early essays on Shakespeare by Greek-Egyptian poet Constantine Cavafy, as... more This essay looks at two early essays on Shakespeare by Greek-Egyptian poet Constantine Cavafy, as well as his unpublished poem "King Claudius." The critical approach is postcolonial: Cavafy at that time (the 1890s) had recently begun employment with the British colonial administration in Alexandria, and I find traces of his subject position not only in the revisionist "Hamlet" proposed by the poem, but in the relativist positions implied by the essays. The essay began as a seminar paper for Arthur Kirsch's graduate course "Shakespeare Our Contemporary" at the University of Virginia. It was my first published essay on Cavafy and the first to employ the critical terms of postcolonial theory. The translations are my own.
Ariel: A Review of International English Literature, Jul 1, 2004
The Yale Journal of Criticism, 2003
Twentieth Century Literature, 2002
... John Gogarty (85)-it was not in epic form but in a form that would characterize virtually all... more ... John Gogarty (85)-it was not in epic form but in a form that would characterize virtually all his mature work: "lyric poetry . .. ... John Gogarty (85)-it was not in epic form but in a form that would characterize virtually all his mature work: "lyric poetry . .. ...
Journal of Modern Greek Studies, 1990
Looks at the linguistic "taboo-breaking" of Engonopoulos's early poetry, specifically his mixing ... more Looks at the linguistic "taboo-breaking" of Engonopoulos's early poetry, specifically his mixing of high (Katharevousa), standard (Dimotiki) and argot in a manner guaranteed to annoy linguistic purists of any stripe. Draws a parallel with the "macaronic" style of Vladimir Nabokov's English.