This volume deals with the illumination of literature through the study of other art forms. A diverse and absorbing variety of subjects are called in aid of literary analysis, including music, aesthetics, politics, rebellion, ritual, stage design, painting, sociology, cinema, and colonization. The essays are adapted from papers given at the 1988 Conference of the Canadian Association for Irish Studies in Montreal, entitled `Cultural and Artistic Contexts of Irish Literature'. Two essays, by Andrew Carpenter and Mary Helen Thuente, have been added to lend completeness to the collection. The other contributors are: Zack Bowen, Richard Allen Cave, Terry Egleton, John Wilson Foster, Richard Kearney, Declan Kiberd, Edna Longley, Patrick Rafroidi and Wolfgang Zach, with the conference opening address by Hiroshi Suzuki.