Under the title of "An Irish Precursor of Dante," there has been published recently a study of the vision of Heaven and Hell, ascribed to the Eighth Century Irish Saint Adamnan, with a translation of the Irish text by C. S. Boswell. In the introduction the author says:
"The main subject of the poem, the visit of a living man, in person or in vision, to the world of the dead, and his report of what he had seen and heard there, belongs to a class of world-myths than which few arc more widely distributed in place or time, and none have been more fortunate in the place won for them by the masters of literature.
"The subject would appear to have possessed a special fascination for the Irish writers at the time when Ireland was the chief intellectual centre of Western Europe, and the constant flux and reflux of Irish teachers and foreign students necessarily tended to spread abroad so much, at any rate, of the compositions of the Irish schools as was in harmony with the tastes and beliefs of Christendom at large.
"By far the most important of the Apocalyptic writings which proceeded from the Irish schools is the Vision which bears the name of St. Adamnan, of which a translation is given in the present volume. It is interesting to compare it with the later and greater work, and to make the numerous points of resemblance which may be discerned in works so widely different.
"This and the like productions of a ruder, but not ignorant or uncultured, age deserve no less attention than that which we bestow upon the works of the primitive schools of art and letters."
Besides the translation of the text itself the book contains chapters on The Seer Adamnan, The Classical, Oriental and Ecclesiastical Traditions, The Legend in Ireland, Later Developments, etc.
– The Book Buyer: A Monthly Review of American and Foreign Literature, Vol. 33 [1905]
