The importance of place—spatial, geographical, topographical—in Irish literature has long been recognized, but as Amy Mulligan notes in this insightful and compelling study, perhaps too much so as a feature rather than a character. Engaging with Gaston Bachelard's poetics of space and heeding his urging that “we must listen to poets” (The Poetics of Space, cited in Mulligan, p. 12), Mulligan produces a sustained reflection on spatial elements in medieval Irish literature spanning six hundred years. This project begins with an introduction defining an Irish poetics of space as “encompass[ing] a great many modes, devices, characteristics and styles . . . unified in the production of landscapes of words, places that become powerfully accessible and inviting, enduring through their verbalization and textual inscription” (p. 14). This definition provides the framework for Mulligan's overarching argument that in their development of this Irish poetics of space, medieval Irish writers were...

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