On (Not) Saying What You Mean

Colm Tóibín reports from Dublin

I came to live in Dublin when I was 17, in October 1972. It was very exciting. The annual fee for an arts student at University College Dublin was £100. Someone from home told me that he wandered into Theatre Lone morning as Denis Donoghue was lecturing and noticed me staring at Donoghue with my mouth wide open, as though I was hearing an amazing piece of gossip for the first time. Donoghue was lecturing about the short poem in the 16th century. I did not know up to then that there were short poems in the 16th century. I knew there were son-nets and plays by Shakespeare and The Faerie Queen, but even saying the phrase now – ‘short poem in the 16th century’ – makes me wish I were writing about the work of Fulke Greville or Sir Walter Ralegh or Sir Thomas Wyatt.