Talk:Metrical Dindshenchas

I think a citation is needed for the statement that this is "the major surviving monument of Irish bardic verse". I don't necessarily dispute that assessment outright (not having read the metrical Dindshenchas myself), but I do wonder to what authority it can be attributed, and how many Irish literary scholars would not prefer that that honour go to Táin Bó Cuailgne or Lebor Gabála Éirenn. Cheers, QuartierLatin1968 19:06, 21 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Neither the Táin Bó Cuailgne nor Lebor Gabála Éirenn are written in verse, though both contain verse passages not all of which are Bardic. The Metrical Dindshenchas is entirely in verse and is the only surviving compendium of Irish Bardic verse on this scale. Filiocht | The kettle's on 08:43, 22 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Ah, certainly, I see the distinction. But is "major surviving monument" part your assessment, or somebody else's? I suppose what I'm asking is, should we rephrase that more quantitatively, or cite some particular source? QuartierLatin1968 [[Image:Red Flag waving.png|20px|The worker's flag is deepest red,/It shrouded oft our martyred dead]] 20:11, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Gwynn
The Metrical Dindshenchas is the edition produced by Edward Gwynn at the turn of the 20th century. Discussing the whole corpus of Ireland's onomastic poetry in an article entitled Metrical Dindshenchas is like treating Buile Shuibhne and Sweeney Astray as synonymous or confusing Táin Bó Cúailnge with the The Táin as presented by Thomas Kinsella.

I do understand that there is a Prose Dindshenchas, but my understanding is that treating these as two separate bodies of work is a convention born out of Gwynn's publication. It seems better to discuss them as the Dindshenchas and describe how they are mostly poetry and are accompanied with the prose commentary.

I created an article called Dindshenchas/Dinsenchas before I discovered this curiously-named page. After discovering this, I added some of the info here to the page I made.

My proposal is that this page be made very short and limited to the discussion of the Gwynn compilation. I'll make the change in a few days if I hear no objections. –House of Scandal 19:06, 14 December 2006 (UTC)