Featuring new essays by international literary scholars, the two-volume "Companion to Irish Literature" encompasses the full breadth of Ireland's literary tradition from the Middle Ages to the present day. Covers an unprecedented historical range of Irish literatureArranged in two volumes covering Irish literature from the medieval period to 1900, and its development through the twentieth century to the present dayPresents a re-visioning of twentieth-century Irish literature and a collection of the most up-to-date scholarship in the field as a wholeIncludes a substantial number of women writers from the eighteenth century to the present dayIncludes essays on leading contemporary authors, including Brian Friel, Seamus Heaney, Eavan Boland, Roddy Doyle, and Emma DonoghueIntroduces readers to the wide range of current approaches to studying Irish literature