"You shall bear / A better witness back than words". Letteratura e testimonianza (in Irlanda): questioni di metodo

In Ireland – a island where“the roots of the politics have a lot in common with the roots of the poetry, and the roots of the problem in Ulster have a lot in common with the state of Ireland” (J. Liddy) – the study of the relationships between Literature and Testimony should not neglect the long-lasting effects of the influence of an “emetteur [...] d’une parole ordonnatrice” of Christian origin (F. Theunis). Such fundamental effects are very diversified and can vary e.g. between an explicit “sacramentalist approach to life and to things” and the testimonial implications expressed by “old Belfast joke about Protestant atheists and Catholic Atheists”. This essay elaborates on this cultural and anthropological awareness and on its critical consequences by applying it to a group of exemplary Irish writers and to emblematic quotations from their work.