Peppercanister

Irish literature exists in two languages. A dual approach is necessary if the tradition, with its historical, political and semantic tensions, is to be understood - indeed, if some of its features are to be appreciated at all. Separate Gaelic and Anglo-Irish anthologies and commentaries have long been readily available, but commentaries dealing with the total Irish literary response are rare. In The Dual Tradition Thomas Kinsella presents a view of poetry in Ireland from early times to the present day, concentrating on the periods of most radical adjustment and change: the coming of Christianity; Norman and later settlement; the end of the bardic period; colonialism and dispossession; politics before the Famine and in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He brings Yeats and Joyce into new focus and considers in special detail the poetry of Austin Clarke, Patrick Kavanagh and Samuel Beckett. The translations from the Irish are by the author.

Proud Valley, a sailor comes to a Welsh coal mining town and helps re-open the mine at the cost of his life. Native Land, a documentary formed from staged reenactments, leads viewers on an emotional tour of the U.S. and its freedom based ideologies (just prior to World War II) and looks at the the forces threatening to undermine its strengths from within: greedy capitalists, professional strikebreakers, and the Ku Klux Kan.