Resumen de The visual artifact in the poetry of Thomas McGreevy
While traditional historicist readings tend to relegate active cross-fertilisations in poetry to the level of 'sources' hierarchically subservient to 'literary' production, the poetry of Thomas McGrevy demands a more discursive focus on the 'painterly' in writing and the 'literary' in painting. This essay examines how the 'literary' status of McGreevy's poetry is mediated by the visual artifact. It begins by grounding his poetic production in the context of his time in Paris, from 1927-33, arguing that the impact of Post-Impressionism offered vital possibilities for the Irish poet after the Irigh Civil War. The 'abstract', 'iconic', and 'non-representational' qualities of his poetry are accordingly understood in terms of a (Post-Impressionist) desire to interfere in a figural sense of space. My readings of his poetry analyse how this interference occurs in relation to the painting of McGreevy's Irish contemporaries, Mainie Jellett and Jack Butler Yeats. They also compare the poet's distinctive use of colour with Wassily Kandinsky's theory of counterpoint and harmony in abstract art. If McGreevy's poetic production owes much to Post-Impressionism, the textual borders of his poetry do not attempt to trace the language of colour and line alone. The essay concludes by reflecting on the nature of McGreevy's poetic dialogue with painting as one that regards itself ironically outdistanced, even outdone, by painting's abstract developments .
