KINSELLA, Thomas (trans.); LE BROCQUY, Louis (illus.).

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

The Tain. First Dolmen edition of the Táin Bó Cúailnge ("The Cattle Raid of Cooley"), an ancient Irish epic set in the heroic age of the pre-Christian first century. This copy of the great livre d'artiste by the translator Thomas Kinsella and the illustrator Louis le Brocquy includes an autograph letter signed by Kinsella, offering his personal definition of poetry.Addressed to one Michael Gallagher and dated 15 December 1979, the letter reads in part: "In my opinion, poetry is: the concentration of intense linguistic equivalents of encounters, continuous or otherwise, between a poet and his or her significant experience, in pursuit of an impulse to elicit order from that experience, with a view to (a) acceptance on the basis of some kind of understanding and (b) the communication of all this."Le Brocquy's commentary on the illustrations appears in his printed artist's note. "The illustrations of early Celtic manuscripts express not personality but temperament. They provide not graphic comment on the text but an extension of it. If [my] images - these marks in printer's ink - form an extension to Thomas Kinsella's Táin, they are a humble one. It is as shadows thrown by the text that they derive their substance" (p. 295).Begun in 1954, the project had a revitalizing effect on Irish mythology and culture, inspiring artists such as the sculptor Conor Fallon, composer Aloys Fleischmann, Celtic rock band Horslips, and playwright Joe O'Byrne. The limited edition was printed by the

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.