The Harp and the Eagle: teaching Irish Poetry in Mexico

Ireland and Mexico share a long tradition of intercultural relationships. The Latin American nation has received significant influence from the mind-frames and oeuvre of Irish or Irish-descended thinkers, and authors. In the field of literature, the presence of Irish writers in Mexico has been equally relevant. A number of them are constantly referenced in middle- to higher-education institutions as paradigmatic examples of the Anglophone belles lettres. Nevertheless, and with the possible exception of Yeats, limited academic and pedagogic attention has been paid to Irish poetry, almost exclusively in English, until comparatively recent times. As of the mid-2000s, the School of Philosophy and Literature (FFyL) of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) has witnessed a surge in academic efforts to promote the verse production of Anglo-Irish poets in the country. With the publication in 2003 of the anthology Una lengua injertada [A Grafted Tongue] and, more recently, with the establishment of the Contemporary Anglo-Irish Literature Research Project, FFyL-UNAM have inaugurated a new era for the study of (Anglo-) Irish verse in Mexico and Spanish-speaking America. This article will explore the critical and pedagogical approaches with which FFyL-UNAM have tackled the teaching of (Anglo) Irish poetry over at least one decade.