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Charles Ivan Armstrong

Professor Department of Foreign Languages and Translation

Email: charles.armstrong@uia.no
Phone: +47 38 14 22 84
Mobile phone: +47 97 08 50 34
Office: E1085 (Universitetsveien 25, 4630 Kristiansand, Norway)

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Areas of responsibility

MONOGRAPHS

Reframing Yeats: Genre, Allusion and History (Bloomsbury, 2013)
Figures of Memory: Poetry, Space and the Past (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009)
Romantic Organicism: From Idealist Origins to Ambivalent Afterlife (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003)

BOOKS EDITED

"Yeats and the Nobel Prize". Special issue of International Yeats Studies (ed. with Joakim Wrethed; volume 9, no. 1, 2025).
Suffering in Anglophone Literatures (ed. with Martina Domines; Lexington, 2024).
Yeats and the Visual Arts (ed. with Adrian Paterson and Tom Walker; Edinburg University Press, 2024).
Terrorizing Images: Trauma and Ekphrasis in Contemporary Literature (ed. with Unni Langås; de Gruyter, 2020).
The Legacy of the Good Friday Agreement: Northern Irish Politics, Culture and Art after 1998 (ed. with David Herbert and Erik Mustad; Palgrave Macmillan, 2018)
The Crossings of Art in Ireland (ed. with Ruben Moi and Brynhildur Boyce; Peter Lang, 2014)
Crisis and Contemporary Poetry (ed. with Anne Karhio and Sean Crosson; Palgrave Macmillan, 2011)
Postcolonial Dislocations: Travel, History, and the Ironies of Narrative (ed. with Øyunn Hestetun; Novus, 2006)

TRANSLATION

Paul Farley, 11 Dikt om Liverpool (Flamme forlag, 2010)

POSITIONS, DISTINCTIONS, Etc.

President of EFACIS (European Federation of Associations and Centres of Irish Studies)
President of the International Yeats Society
Board member of the Nordic Irish Studies Network (chair 2010-2014)
Board member of the Norwegian Researcher Training School in the Humanities, Text, Image, Sound and Space (TBLR)
Member of the Editorial Advisory Board for Romantik: Journal for the Study of Romanticisms, the Editorial Board of Review of Irish Studies in Europe and Nordic Irish Studies, and the International Editorial Board for the Yeats Journal of Korea
Visiting Fellow at Wolfson College, Cambridge
Invited lecturer at W. B. Yeats International Summer School 2005, 2011, 2014 and 2018 (co-director 2020-23)
Member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters (group leader for literature, 2024-) and the Agder Academy of Sciences and Letters

Research

Academic interests

W. B. Yeats, Irish literature, English poetry from Romanticism to the Present, Literary theory, Trauma theory.

Research groups

Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2025). Rimbaud’s Ham Rolls. “Au Cabaret-Vert” and Cultural Misunderstanding. In Cassidy, Meghann & Schwerter, Stephanie (Ed.), Between Words and Sounds Cultural Misunderstanding in Literary and Song Translation. Ibidem-Verlag. ISSN 9783838219783. p. 97–116. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2025). The Reluctant Tourist: Genre and Popular Culture in The Bounty of Sweden. International Yeats Studies. ISSN 2475-9627. 9(1), p. 63–76. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2025). Exception and Example: Scandinavia and the Establishment of the Abbey Theatre in Ireland. In Rix, Robert W.; Roos, Merethe; Bergström, Eva-Lena & Duffy, Cian (Ed.), The Exceptional North Past and Present Perspectives on Nordicness. De Gruyter Oldenbourg. ISSN 9783112205266. p. 295–312. doi: 10.1515/9783112205266-016. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
From 18th-century accounts to contemporary discourse, this book critically examines the notion of 'Nordic exceptionalism’. Through careful historical analysis, it explores how external observers have perceived and portrayed Nordic societies, questioning the roots and evolution of this influential concept within social as well as art-historical debates. Our main research question is: Were ideas of exceptionalism already present in early discussions and debates about the Nordic countries? While the perception of Nordic exceptionalism has often been idealised, the book shows that it has never been devoid of cultural criticism. Nevertheless, there remains a consistent acknowledgement that the Nordic countries stand out as a distinct cultural unit shaped by a distinctive cultural and political trajectory. The book fills a gap in existing critical literature by analysing historical perspectives. Furthermore, it explores how the Nordic countries have crafted their self-representation in response to these external views. Each chapter is thoughtfully curated to balance scholarly rigour with accessibility, making it suitable for students and scholars in the interdisciplinary fields of history, cultural studies, art- and literary history, and transnational research
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2025). W. B. Yeats. In Moran, James (Eds.), Sean O'Casey in Context. Cambridge University Press. ISSN 9781009304184. p. 173–181. doi: 10.1017/9781009304191.017. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Yeats was an important – if sometimes ambivalent – early supporter of O’Casey. As co-director of the Abbey, Yeats played an important part in first getting O’Casey’s Dublin writing to the stage and in defending that work from critics. Yet, although the Abbey had fostered O’Casey’s talents, W. B. Yeats led his fellow directions in rejecting O’Casey’s 1928 work The Silver Tassie in a way that had a major impact both upon O’Casey’s career and upon the Abbey Theatre’s own history. This chapter interrogates the relationship between O’Casey and Yeats, which is inextricably bound to central tensions at the heart of the early years of the Abbey Theatre.
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2025). The Task of the Translator among the Poets: Walter Benjamin and Robert Lowell. Translation Review (TR). ISSN 0737-4836. 121(1), p. 44–52. doi: 10.1080/07374836.2025.2460946. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2024). Ghost in the Mirror: David Bowie, Mourning, and Suicide. Nordlit. ISSN 0809-1668. 52(2), p. 110–122. doi: 10.7557/13.7904. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2024). The Virtual Archive of 'Anima Mundi'. In Armstrong, Charles Ivan; Adrian, Paterson & Walker, Tom (Ed.), The Edinburgh Companion to W. B. Yeats and the Arts. Edinburgh University Press. ISSN 9781474499668. p. 67–82. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2024). Materials from a 'World Record': W. B. Yeats and His Archives. In Callison, Jamie Christopher; Feldman, Matthew; Svendsen, Anna & Tonning, Erik (Ed.), The Bloomsbury Handbook of Modernist Archives. Bloomsbury Academic. ISSN 9781350450554. p. 19–28. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2024). Forbryterens fravær. Gaute Heivolls litterære fremstillinger av nazisten Rudolf Kerner. In Langås, Unni & Torjusen, Henrik Martin Hansen (Ed.), Krigsforbrytere i dagens estetiske minnekultur. Cappelen Damm Akademisk. ISSN 9788202855666. p. 293–312. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Krigsforbrytere har siden krigens slutt vært et vanskelig tema, og interessen har i vår tid ikke avtatt. Betegnelsen «krigsforbryter» har juridisk forankring, men blir også brukt mindre formelt, og ord som «landssviker», «landsforræder», «gjerningsperson» og «overgriper» hører med i diskusjonene som føres. Som bidragene i denne boka viser, er forestillingene om fortidens krigsforbrytere fortsatt levende, og deres gjerninger blir både vanemessig repetert og stadig tolket på nytt. I sentrum for mange tematiseringer av krigsforbrytere står dobbeltheten mellom vanlig menneske og brutal overgriper. Ikke minst gjennomsyrer den vurderinger av hvordan krigsforbrytere og deres handlinger bør og kan framstilles i estetiske uttrykksformer. I møte med fortidens ugjerninger må tilskueren forholde seg til en spenningsladet skala av gråtoner mellom dokumentariske tegn og tydelige fiksjonaliseringer. De kunstneriske uttrykkene vi undersøker i denne boka – litteratur, film, teater, tv-produksjoner og utstillinger, gir ulike tolkninger av krigsforbrytere og deres etterliv i den kollektive minnekulturen. En viktig tendens er at krigsforbryteren som estetisk figur er mindre karikert og mer sammensatt enn det som ofte har vært tilfelle. Målet for de aktuelle representasjonene er gjerne å forstå uten å tilgi, og samtidig relatere fortidens erfaringer til dagens verdidiskusjoner og politiske utfordringer. Krigsforbrytere i dagens estetiske minnekultur retter seg mot forskere, studenter og alle med en interesse for den fortsatte betydningen av andre verdenskrig.
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2024). Lines of Exposure: Poetry and Crisis. In Pellicer-Ortin, Silvia; Kuznetski, Julia & Battisti, Chiara (Ed.), The Routledge Companion to Literatures and Crisis. Routledge. ISSN 9781032424644. p. 95–103. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2024). Derek Mahon’s Biography, Poetry, and Trauma. In Domines, Martina & Armstrong, Charles Ivan (Ed.), Suffering in Anglophone Literatures. Lexington Books. ISSN 9781666944129. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2024). Poetic Justice and Translation: Seamus Heaney's Two Greek Plays and the Troubles. In Moi, Ruben Rune (Eds.), Literature's Critique, Subversion, and Transformation of Justice. Lexington Books. ISSN 9781666952582. p. 127–144. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2024). "Far Away, So Close!" Multidirectional Memory, Spatiality, and New Media. In Røysland, Ingunn (Eds.), U2's Songs of Trauma and Hope: "Between the Midnight and the Dawning". Lexington Books. ISSN 9781666930986. p. 89–109. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2023). Germinal Ironies: Justice and the Poetry of Derek Mahon. NIS: Nordic Irish Studies. ISSN 1602-124X. 19, p. 173–190. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2023). Romanticism and Aestheticism. In Arrington, Laura & Campbell, Matthew (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of W. B. Yeats. Oxford University Press. ISSN 9780198834670. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2021). Literature, political conflict and intercultural understanding: Teaching the Northern Irish Troubles. In Quinn, Justin & Kleckova, Gabriela (Ed.), Anglophone Literature in Second-Language Teacher Education: Curriculum Innovation through Intercultural Communication. Routledge. ISSN 9780367256524. p. 92–105. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2021). Ambivalent Déjà-vu: World War II in the Poetry of the Northern Irish Troubles. Memory Studies. ISSN 1750-6980. 14(1), p. 68–79. doi: 10.1177/1750698020976461. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2021). Ekfrasen som begivenhet. Norsk litteraturvitenskapelig tidsskrift. ISSN 0809-2044. 24(2), p. 99–111. doi: 10.18261/issn.1504-288X-2021-02-03. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2021). Cornered: Intimate Relations in 'The Words upon the Window-Pane'. International Yeats Studies. ISSN 2475-9627. 5(1), p. 11–25. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2020). Trauma and poetry. In Davis, Colin & Meretoja, Hanna (Ed.), The Routledge Companion to Literature and Trauma. Routledge. ISSN 9781138494923. p. 296–304. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2020). Birth Pangs: Conversion and Revelation in W. B. Yeats. In Lie, Sissel; Vegge, Tor & Sandhaug, Christina (Ed.), The Mimesis of Change: Conversion and Peripety in Life Stories. Fabrizio Serra Editore. ISSN 9788833152318. p. 119–132. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Oral, scripted and pictorial art has from its beginnings been focused on the lives of outstanding heroes and human beings: highborn men and women and their prowess, achievements, and errors of judgement and their consequences. Such life stories involve a reversal in the narrated events that provide an example to the listener, reader or spectator, enabling them to avoid repeating the protagonist s errors. By showing the effects of error and the reversals it produces, these narratives teach the audiences to change their ways and convert to a new kind of life. In its more general sense conversion simply means a passage of one state to another, usually centering on a turning point; it may be based on personal choice and conviction, or it may occur as the result of outside forces or events. The articles in this volume collectively demonstrate the ontological complexity of such change and the mimetic representation thereof; they represent different aspects of what the Editors term «the mimesis of change» in the real or fictional lives of characters, exploring how writers and artists deploy the device of peripety to depict personal, social, political, spiritual, artistic and intellectual changes. They also explore the many forms this mimesis of change can take: narratives in letters, tales and autobiographical accounts; images in the shape of poetic moments and paintings; dramatized representation in drama, theatre and spectacle. Finally, since the articles study the mimesis of such change, and not simply the change itself, reception becomes a central theme. It is the purpose of peripety to lead to recognition and change also on the part of the audience of readers and spectators, whether this change takes the shape of the shameful admittance of sin or the relief of a lucky escape
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2019). Trauma in Michael Longley’s War Poetry of the Troubles. Partial Answers. ISSN 1565-3668. 17(2), p. 349–362. doi: 10.1353/pan.2019.0021. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2019). Harold Bloom og innflytelsesangsten. Innganger til en begrepslabyrint. Agora Journal for metafysisk spekulasjon. ISSN 0800-7136. 37(2), p. 33–55. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2019). Translation and Tragic Error: Culture, Conflict and Northern Irish Translations of Sophocles' Antigone. In Riordáin, Clíona Ni & Schwerter, Stephanie (Ed.), Speaking Like a Spanish Cow: Cultural Errors in Translation. Ibidem-Verlag. ISSN 9783838212562. p. 251–268. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2018). "Some Ovid of the Films": W. B. Yeats, Mass Media, and the Future of Poetry in the 1930s. International Yeats Studies. ISSN 2475-9627. 3(1), p. 49–63. doi: 10.34068/iys.03.01.04. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2018). The Spirit of Transformation: W. B. Yeats, Leo Africanus, and the Mediterranean. In Lyngstad, Brit Helene; Lie, Sissel & Uvsløkk, Geir (Ed.), Multiple Mediterranean. Myths, Utopias and Real-Life Experiences. Fabrizio Serra Editore. ISSN 9788833150345. p. 109–125. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2018). Life Writing and Life-Forms. Hagiography in Ciaran Carson’s Shamrock Tea. In Forsgren, Frida & Vegge, Tor (Ed.), Hagiographic Adaptations. Fabrizio Serra Editore. ISSN 9788833151151. p. 123–135. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2018). 'George Mitchell's Peace': The Good Friday Agreement in Colum McCann's novel TransAtlantic, The Legacy of the Good Friday Agreement Northern Irish Politics, Culture and Art after 1998. Palgrave Macmillan. ISSN 9783319912318. p. 57–71. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-91232-5_4. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2018). Violent Measures: Representation, Regulation, and the Shankill Butchers. In Hülk, Walpurga & Schwerter, Stephanie (Ed.), Mauern, Grenzen, Zonen: Geteilte Städte in Literatur und Film. Universitätsverlag Winter. ISSN 9783825376987. p. 59–69. Full text in Research Archive

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Armstrong, Charles Ivan; Adrian, Paterson & Walker, Tom (2024). The Edinburgh Companion to W. B. Yeats and the Arts. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 9781474499668. 467 p. Full text in Research Archive
Domines, Martina & Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2024). Suffering in Anglophone Literatures. Lexington Books. ISBN 9781666944129. 334 p. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan & Langås, Unni (2020). Terrorizing Images: Trauma and Ekphrasis in Contemporary Literature. De Gruyter Brill. ISBN 9783110692907. doi: 10.1515/9783110693959. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan & Langås, Unni (2020). Terrorizing Images. Trauma and Ekphrasis in Contemporary Literature. De Gruyter Brill. ISBN 9783110694031. 204 p. doi: 10.1515/9783110693959. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
This book combines two focal points: trauma and ekphrasis. It responds to the recognition of how terrorizing images permeate the public sphere in connection with traumatic experiences and confl icts and emphasizes the ways in which such images are described and interpreted by words. Contributors analyze the use of verbally represented images in a variety of literary texts in several different languages.
Armstrong, Charles Ivan; Herbert, David Eric John & Mustad, Jan Erik (2018). The Legacy of the Good Friday Agreement Northern Irish Politics, Culture and Art after 1998. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9783319912318. 297 p. Full text in Research Archive

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Slotnes, Oda Sagebakken; Vatne, Helle Marie & Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2025). Litteraturens mønstre: Ekfrase med Charles Armstrong. doi: https:/player.captivate.fm/episode/34b0aa95-1a39-47ea-b2a2-f633f421a67c/. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Episode 5: Kunsten og litteraturen møtes i ekfrasen, men hvor går grensene mellom beskrivelse, tolkning og gjengivelse? I samtale med professor Charles Armstrong undersøker Oda og Helle forskjellige ekfraser av Peter Bruegels maleri "Landscape With the Fall of Icarus", og snakker om hvordan myten om Ikaros har bevegd seg gjennom historien. Med teksteksempler fra W. H. Auden, William Carlos Williams og David Bowie.
Slotnes, Oda Sagebakken; Vatne, Helle Marie; Armstrong, Charles Ivan & Universitet, Søren Frank ved Københavns (2025). Litteraturens mønstre: Havet i litteraturen med Søren Frank og Charles Armstrong. doi: https:/player.captivate.fm/episode/53c7a9e0-5de8-4c71-b768-f0959a9a52f0/. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Episode 21: Havet har alltid vært et sentralt motiv i litteraturen – som symbol på frihet og fare, som grense og mulighet, som et sted for utvikling og forfall. I denne live-episoden av Litteraturens mønstre utforsker vi hvordan havet dukker opp i litteraturen og stiller spørsmål som: Hvorfor har havet en så sterk tilstedeværelse i fortellinger og i poesien? Hvilke ideer og forestillinger knyttes til det blå landskapet? Hva forteller havet oss om menneskets forhold til naturen, til reise, til det ukjente? På scenen sitter Søren Frank, professor i litteraturvitenskap ved Københavns Universitet, ekspert på Blue Humanities og forfatter av A Poetic History of the Oceans, og Charles Armstrong, professor i britisk litteratur ved Universitetet i Agder, med spisskompetanse på irsk poesi og engelskspråklig litteratur.
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2025). The ‘string that sags and ascends’: Kites and Relations in Seamus Heaney and U2. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2025). Remembering “this hallowed place”: Yeats’s “The Municipal Gallery Revisited”, Charlemont House, and Memory Studies. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2025). North as a Classic. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2025). In Attention To: The Ekphrases of Ciaran Carson’s Still Life. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2025). Marit Grøtta: Reading Portrait Photographs in Proust, Kafka and Woolf: Modernism, Media and Emotion. Norsk litteraturvitenskapelig tidsskrift. ISSN 0809-2044. 28(1), p. 82–82. doi: 10.18261/nlvt.28.1.9. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan; Paterson, Adrian M & Walker, Tom (2024). Introduction. In Armstrong, Charles Ivan; Adrian, Paterson & Walker, Tom (Ed.), The Edinburgh Companion to W. B. Yeats and the Arts. Edinburgh University Press. ISSN 9781474499668. p. 1–16. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2024). The Wanderings of the Modern Myths: Exemplarity, Adaptation, and Spatiality. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2024). Cian Duffy and Robert W. Rix, Nordic Romanticism: Translation, Transmission, Transformation. Wordsworth Circle. ISSN 0043-8006. 55(3), p. 283–288. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2024). Conjuring a Theatre: Yeats, the Abbey, and the Norwegian Example. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2024). Rimbaud’s Ham Rolls: «Au Cabaret-Vert» and Cultural Misunderstanding. Full text in Research Archive
Domines, Martina & Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2024). Introduction. In Domines, Martina & Armstrong, Charles Ivan (Ed.), Suffering in Anglophone Literatures. Lexington Books. ISSN 9781666944129. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2023). The Reluctant Tourist: “The Bounty of Sweden” as Travelogue. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2023). Sean O'Casey. Store Norske Leksikon (Nettutgaven). Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2023). Anne Enright. Store Norske Leksikon (Nettutgaven). Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2023). The Task of the Translator Among the Poets: Walter Benjamin and Robert Lowell. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2023). “But you are not interested in the great war”: Universalism and the Silver Tassie Controversy. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2023). The «chalazea grip»: Witnessing, History, and Ekphrasis in Doireann Ní Ghríofa’s “In Albumen, In Pixels, In Bricks”. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2023). “’Twixt lays and re-lays”: Neoclassicism and Ekphrasis in Thomas Moore’s Rhymes on the Road. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2023). Yeats's Nobel Journey. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2022). Ulysses 100 år. [Radio]. NRK P2, Studio 2. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Radioprogram om 100-årsjubileet for utgivelsen av James Joyces roman ULYSSES. Nettside (operativ 7.2.2022): https://radio.nrk.no/podkast/studio_2/l_c4e3ff3f-bec6-41f7-a3ff-3fbec611f79f?fbclid=IwAR23Ac_G5D-E5KGLE0mQg-o0VS9-8oylVsIwq3K_U3qOwFWMmGf0DkYlmsk
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2022). The Contretemps of Derek Mahon's Poetry: The Trauma Narrative and Beyond. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2022). In the Company of Yeats: The Personality and Impersonality of his Style. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2022). "Sky light wind sun": Derek Mahon, Vivienne Roche and Ecological Art. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2022). "It might be anywhere": Derek Mahon, Ekphrasis, and the American Atlantic Seaboard. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2022). ‘You could float here for ever’: Derek Mahon, Vivienne Roche, and Heterochronia. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2022). ‘The longed-for tidal wave / Of justice’: Seamus Heaney’s Two Greek Plays and the Troubles. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2022). Sally Rooney. In Bolstad, Erik (Eds.), Store norske leksikon (snl.no 2022). Store norske leksikon. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2022). Derek Mahon. In Bolstad, Erik (Eds.), Store norske leksikon (snl.no 2022). Store norske leksikon. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan & Roche, Vivienne (2022). Vivienne Roche in conversation with Charles Armstrong. [Internet]. European Fed. of Associations and Centres of Irish Studies. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
In her conversation with Charles Armstrong, Vivienne Roche talks about being a sculptor first; the influence of her father and the language of engineering on her work; sculpture’s potential for abstraction and her interest in architecture; working with the hidden archeology of a site and the research this involves; the importance of space, materiality and social context in her sculptures; and her collaborations with Sebastian Barry and Derek Mahon, in particular the Lighthouse project.
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2022). Introducing William Butler Yeats. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2022). Event Horizons: Ekphrasis in W. B. Yeats, Thomas Moore, and Ciaran Carson. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2021). From ‘the deep heart’s core’ to the Posthumous Record: Yeats and Memory. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2021). Tar klassen ut av klassikerne. Morgenbladet. ISSN 0805-3847. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2021). Cultural Memory in Seamus Heaney's Late Work. Estudios Irlandeses. 16. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2021). Poetry and "the Pencil of Love": The Early Anglo-Irish Ekphrasis of Mary Tighe. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2021). William B. Yeats - Irlands nasjonalpoet. [Radio]. NRK P2. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2021). Hallowed Place or Non-Place? Yeats, Ekphrasis, and the Museum. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2021). Oscar Wilde. Store Norske Leksikon (Nettutgaven). Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2021). Unbolting the stable door: Yeats’s “The Fascination of What’s Difficult” and its English Precursors. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan & Langås, Unni (2020). Introduction: Encounters between Trauma and Ekphrasis, Words and Images. In Armstrong, Charles Ivan & Langås, Unni (Ed.), Terrorizing Images. Trauma and Ekphrasis in Contemporary Literature. De Gruyter Brill. ISSN 9783110694031. p. 1–12. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
This book combines two focal points: trauma and ekphrasis. It responds to the recognition of how terrorizing images permeate the public sphere in connection with traumatic experiences and confl icts and emphasizes the ways in which such images are described and interpreted by words. Contributors analyze the use of verbally represented images in a variety of literary texts in several different languages.
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2020). Remedial Intermediality: Ekphrasis in Sinéad Morrissey’s “The Doctors”. In Armstrong, Charles Ivan & Langås, Unni (Ed.), Terrorizing Images. Trauma and Ekphrasis in Contemporary Literature. De Gruyter Brill. ISSN 9783110694031. p. 137–150. doi: 10.1515/9783110693959-009. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
This book combines two focal points: trauma and ekphrasis. It responds to the recognition of how terrorizing images permeate the public sphere in connection with traumatic experiences and confl icts and emphasizes the ways in which such images are described and interpreted by words. Contributors analyze the use of verbally represented images in a variety of literary texts in several different languages.
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2020). Educational Experiments: Childhood Sympathy, Regulation, and Object-Relations in Maria Edgeworth’s Writings About Education. In Veliki, Martina Domines & Duffy, Cian (Ed.), Romanticism and the Cultures of Infancy. Palgrave Macmillan. ISSN 9783030504281. p. 135–157. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-50429-8_7. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2020). Magic / Gimmick: W. B. Yeats’s labours of love and loathing. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2020). Memory as Displacement: Seamus Heaney’s Bog Poems and P. V. Glob. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2019). Entangled, haunted, polymorphic: Articulating Michael Rothberg’s multidirectional memory. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan & Fjellstad, Tore (2019). Robinson Crusoe 300 år. [Internet]. Podkast fra Kristiansand folkebibliotek. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2019). Dresden China: Fractured Memory Narratives in Ciaran Carson's Poetry. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2019). Robinson Crusoe. In Bolstad, Erik (Eds.), Store norske leksikon (snl.no 2019). Store norske leksikon AS. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2019). Poetic remembering against the grain: Tom Paulin, T. S. Eliot, and World War II. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2019). Foreword. In Springer, Michael; Butler, Stephen & Palazzolo, Pietra (Ed.), John Banville and His Precursors. Bloomsbury Academic. ISSN 9781350084520. p. x–xiii. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2019). The "open door of her body”: Ekphrasis, Self-reflection and Embodiment in Vona Groarke. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2019). “Imitate Him if You Dare”: Love, Literature, and Mediumship in The Words upon the Window-Pane. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2019). Vona Groarke. In Bolstad, Erik (Eds.), Store norske leksikon (snl.no 2019). Store norske leksikon AS. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2019). Eimear McBride. In Bolstad, Erik (Eds.), Store norske leksikon (snl.no 2019). Store norske leksikon AS. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2019). Teaching the Literature of the Troubles. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2018). 200 years of Frankenstein. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2018). Poetry’s Last Stand: The Apocalyptical Battle of the Genres in W. B. Yeats. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan; Herbert, David Eric John & Mustad, Jan Erik (2018). Introduction, The Legacy of the Good Friday Agreement Northern Irish Politics, Culture and Art after 1998. Palgrave Macmillan. ISSN 9783319912318. p. 1–14. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2018). The abounding glittering jet: Yeats, the Romantics and natura naturans. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2018). Framing the Self: Vona Groarke’s Liminal Autobiography. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2018). Humbugging and the Wild Beast: Laughter in Yeats’s Where There is Nothing. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2018). Narratives of Romanticism: Selected Papers from the Wuppertal Conference of the German Society for English Romanticism; Romantic Ambiguities: Abodes of the Modern; Romanticism and the Forms of Discontent. Romantik: Journal for the Study of Romanticisms. ISSN 2245-599X. 7, p. 163–167. Full text in Research Archive
Armstrong, Charles Ivan (2018). Making a "Right Blood-Mess": Northern Irish Translations of Greek Tragedy. Full text in Research Archive
Langås, Unni; Armstrong, Charles Ivan & Pitronova, Eva (2023). «Jeg skaper meg en ny klode». Fiktive verdener og Ellen Einans lyrikk. Universitetet i Agder. ISSN 9788284271149. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
This thesis examines the fictional potential of lyric poetry and demonstrates a fiction-based analysis on writings of the Norwegian poet Ellen Einan. In addition to the theoretical discussion of fictional worlds of lyric poetry, this monograph also introduces a previously unknown part of Einan’s writing, explores the visual dimension of her poems and presents the complexity of her works in an entirely new manner. The works of Ellen Einan have lots of world-building elements that help to establish a fictional universe. These elements work best when all her poems er merged into a bigger narrative. This is also how I conduct my analysis, where Einan’s entire writing production is explored as a lyric counterpart to large, fantastic narratives with one assembled fictional world. The first part of the thesis consists of two relatively different theoretical chapters. The first one establishes a concept of the lyric fictional world, which is in my perspective a fusion between the theoretical concept of possible worlds (established by Thomas Pavel, Lubomír Doležel and Marie-Laure Ryan), and the idea of different subjects in poetry described by the Czech structuralists (Miroslav Červenka). At the same time, several narrative orientated viewpoints on the analysis of lyric poetry are presented and incorporated into the theoretical framework. The second chapter focuses on the genetic investigation of literary manuscripts, the creation of different versions and variations, and the process of literary rewritings. These two concepts – the idea of the lyric fictional world and the genetic approach to the manuscripts – create analytical tools for the text analysis and interpretation. The analytical part of the thesis is divided into eleven shorter chapters which identify four fictionalizing elements in Einan’s poetic universe (the sense of logic and modal design, the poems’ internal chronology and fictional time, the sense of place, and the existence of fictional entities), as well as problematise different topics that shape her poetry (dance, death and burial, letters, and motherhood). The empirical basis is comprised of Einan’s published poems and her private archive that consists of hundreds of handwritten poem manuscripts (with or without drawings) and poem transcriptions written on a typewriter. The point of intersection between the reading strategies mentioned before and the primary research material is the construction of the fictional world of the poems through repetition of thematic structures and creation of an underlying narrative. Through this network of references the reader is able to discover and reconstruct a specific fictional world with a different, otherworldly ontology. This process creates a virtual community and landscape through short glimpses – represented in the poems – and in each poem directs another aspect of the fictional universe. The core of this world and this community is embodied in the entity of the nameless I, the lyric subject, which initiates almost all the poems and is presented here as a main character and a narrator simultaneously. The exploration of the lyric subject’s evolvement and relation to its fictional environment is at the centre of most of the poem analyses. In addition, the thesis tracks changes and reworkings in the manuscripts and scrutinizes their meaning for the fictional world of the poems. This dissertation focuses specifically on the character of the lyric fictional world, but it also considers the interconnections between the poetical form and the fictional dimension of the poems – even if only to a lesser extent. Furthermore, the thesis challenges the traditional definition of lyric poetry, promotes the benefits of its fictional potential – which has generally been downplayed – and in this way brings new insight into the rethinking of the lyric genre.

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Published Apr. 16, 2024 11:40 AM - Last modified May 21, 2025 3:00 PM