You talk funny, hyuk.
Hey, “bumpkinitude” is a word NOW, buddy.
Parochial is self-contained and small, local, both in a literal sense (then it’s churchy) and in a figurative sense (ideas, concerns, views can be parochial). Unless it’s strictly church (in the original sense “pertaining to the parish”), it has a negative connotation by suggesting unhealthy limitation.
Provincial is a cultural slur. Very different, except in that it’s negative.
“Provincial” and “Received pronounciation” bear no direct relationship.
Someone from the provinces is unlikely to speak in the dialect (accent) of the capitol. In the UK that’s RP*, albeit with a complication over class–RP is the dialect of the region near but not in the city.
*Much like Parisian is the most prestigious accent in French.
So, we’re not getting anywhere as regards what I’m after. I take it no one has come across the terms “parochial” and “provincial” used in a comparative manner in ITM discussions so far.
Only as regards style, and even those were just personal opinions, disregarding the influence of individual teachers in a given area.
djm
As I mentioned, the two terms are explicitly contrasted in the Paul Muldoon essay on Patrick Kavanagh’s* influence on contemporary Irish Poetry that I alluded to earlier. That’s not exactly in context with ITM, but it’s closer than any other mention in this thread.
*Kavanagh is the author of one set of words commonly sung to The Dawning of the Day / Raglan Road, so he’s not a complete departure from ITM.
Might there be an online text of Muldoon’s essay? I think it could prove helpful, but I’ve been searching and have come up with zilch. Maybe I’m not using the right keywords.
I’m finding that I might have the particular book I read it in remembered incorrectly, because I recall it as the preface to The Faber Book of Contemporary Irish Poetry, but the internets say that Muldoon quoted a transcribed 1939 discussion between Louis MacNeice and someone else rather than write an introduction.
However, the internet also says:
http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=7872
Two of his most famous poems are included in the Archive, both of which demonstrate the appeal of his “rough immediacy” (The Oxford Companion to Twentieth Century Poetry). Kavanagh was proud to call himself a parochial poet, which he defined as being the opposite of provincialism. While the provincial man looks to the opinion of the metropolis, the parochial “is never in any doubt about the social and artistic validity of his parish” (Patrick Kavanagh). This is the spirit which infuses ‘Kerr’s Ass’ with its proud assertion that, despite the poverty of the community in which it is set, the God of Imagination can be found waking in Mucker, the townland of Kavanagh’s birth. His poem ‘Epic’ stakes his claim to the importance of the local even more directly, arguing that myths can be made out of a “local row”. Its combination of sturdy colloquialism and the sophistication of the sonnet form captures the paradox of Kavanagh’s life and work. His gravely, unpretentious delivery is entirely in keeping with the poems’ ethos.
http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/new_hibernia_review/v010/10.2russell.htmlIn Ireland, later in the century, Patrick Kavanagh’s call for contemporary Irish authors to write in a parochial, not a provincial, manner, was likewise instructive for Friel.
Ah. This isn’t it, but it’s very similar:
Very helpful! Thanks. This is along the lines of what I had in mind, and it helps to crystallise things more for me.
I think some of you were basically saying the same thing, but sometimes it takes a particular way of putting it for an idea to be caught by some.
Now I’m left to ponder what constitutes the “metropolis”, for it seems to me that this would necessarily have to be a metaphor, here: would it be the greater, worldwide ITM community as a whole? Those I look up to? Ireland? The old recordings? Riverdance? Mere filthy lucre? This might be harder to pin down…
Dis id de Metro Polis. You cam out now hanzup!
djm