SOURCE: Wilson, William A. “A Theoptic Eye: Derek Mahon's The Hunt by Night.” Eire-Ireland 25, no. 4 (winter 1990): 120-31.

In the following essay, Wilson discusses the importance of place in Mahon's poetry. He also observes a subtle shift in Mahon's treatment of popular culture in his works, moving away from a categorical rejection of contemporary life.

Much critical work on modern and postmodern Irish writers has rightly been founded upon the strong belief that a consideration of their Irish background is crucial to any study of their achievements. Yet this corrective to modern formalist criticism has itself been the subject of much discussion, if only because the concept “Irish background” is problematic at best. Indeed, when used in the context of Irish literature since the 1960s, the ground of Irish history is further problematized, if such a thing were possible, by the alphabetical armies—IRA, INRA, RUC, SAS, UDA, UDR...