| Summary: | This thesis engages with the usc of traditional forms, and the role of the lyric subject, in contemporary poetry. It carries out close readings on the work of five contemporary poets (Derek Mahon, Michael Longley, Paul Muldoon, Don Paterson and Simon Armitage) and highlights points of intersection and influence between their various oeuvres. The thesis also challenges critical readings which suggest the existence of significant 'generational' differences in Northern Irish poetry from the 1960s onwards, and reveals, by dose attention to the poems themselves, that the critical perception of a clear barrier existing between the formal 'conservatism' of one generation and the 'experimentalism' of the next is unfounded and incorrect. By linking the formal procedures of Paul Muldoon to pre-existing strategies perceptible in the work of two earlier poets, Michael Longley and Derek Mahon, it reveals a more fruitful pattern of exchange and influence, and highlights ways in which the two earlier writers, via their manipulation of form and subject, may be seen to engage with 'radical' concepts habitually perceived to be beyond their purview. To this end, the thesis also interacts with theories of form, language and subjectivity. Finally, by extending its reach beyond Northern Ireland to include the work of two emergent British poets, Don Paterson and Simon Armitage, the thesis argues that the formal approaches of Northern Irish poetry continue to exert visible intluence on new writing, thus challenging arguments which suggest these techniques to be redundant, retrograde or site-specific. Using the figure of Paul Muldoon as intermediary, it asserts the significance of Muldoon's formal inheritance to his influence on younger writers, and argues for recognition of the means by which Armitage and Paterson straddle the conventional binaries of labels like 'mainstream' and 'experimental.'
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