James Harpur
Voices of the Book of Kells

The Book of Kells has been associated with at least three places: Iona, Kells and Dublin. Some also think that it was the Book of Kells that Gerald of Wales saw in Kildare in the late 12th century. The book is named after the monastery in Co. Meath, which housed it for several hundred years. It consists of 680 pages that present the four gospels in an elegant Latin hand known as insular majuscule. The book's renown, however, rests on its illuminations, with their glowing colours and extraordinary detail. Pages were made from vellum; and scribes worked with quills and ink made from soot or crushed oak apples. Illuminators used compasses, set-squares and a range of natural colours, such as green from treated copper and blue from lapis lazuli.

Exactly who created the book and where remains a mystery. Most scholars now believe the book was begun, if not finished, at the Irish monastery of Iona before being taken to its sister house at Kells after a Viking raid in 806. The book apparently stayed at Kells for the next eight centuries and was eventually transferred to Trinity College, Dublin, in the mid-l7th century. It is now housed there in its own exhibition room.

The Book of Kells is a place of divine poetry, written and visual, and, especially from the perspective of the 21st century, the archetype or patron saint of books. Every page displays a sense of loving devotion, concentration and craftsmanship- the book was clearly made to last. It is also a book of surprising tensions: a visionary flair for the whole is matched by an obsessive concern for detail; the grand static formalism of its set-piece illuminations is balanced by swirling spirals, knotwork and foliage and impish cats, mice, otters and fish who cavort in hidden corners. For any writer the book raises fundamental questions about art: its relationship to inspiration; the modern preoccupation with 'originality' and the individual voice; the aim of sacred art and its bearing on the function of secular art or art in a secular age; the nature of the imagination; the possibility or otherwise of representing ultimate truth in a sensate material form; and so on.

Voices of the Book of Kells

'In order to paint you, O Virgin, stars rather than colours
would be needed, so that you, the Gate of Light,
should be depicted in luminosities. But the stars do not
obey the voices of mortals. Therefore we
delineate and paint you with what nature
and the laws of painting can provide.'

Constantine of Rhodes, 9th century

My hand is weary with writing
My sharp quill is not steady
My slender-beaked pen pours forth
A black draught of shining dark-blue ink.

Anonymous (Irish 11th century)

 

Poems by James Harpur

 

 

James Harpur

James Harpur has had two collections of poetry published by Anvil Press: A Vision of Comets (1993) and The Monk's Dream (1996). He was born in 1956 of Irish-British parentage and studied Classics and English at Cambridge. He was a runner-up in the Poetry Society's National Poetry Competition in 1979 and won it in 1995. He has also received an Eric Gregory award (1985) and an Arts Council bursary (1996). He works as a freelance writer.