‚Stolen Child‘. A literary comparison between McCann’s short story and Yeat’s poem

Studienarbeit aus dem Jahr 2014 im Fachbereich Anglistik – Literatur, Note: 1,7, Katholische Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: Stolen Child is a short story written by Colum McCann. It is part of Fishing in the sloe-black river, a collection of short stories by the same author and was first published in 1994. As Yeats is a famous Irish Poet and Colum McCann is an Irish writer, there is a high chance that he knew the poem and weaved in some of its topics on purpose. The most remarkable indication is the storys title, which goes like the title of Yeatss poem: ‚Stolen child‘, but other themes such as that of the Irish goddess Dana or the topic of fairies seem to fit both works. I hereby pose the thesis that Irish mythology and Yeats poem influenced the short story written by Colum McCann. In first step, I will pick out important aspects from the two texts and give detail on topics such as fairies and Irish mythology as far as concerning either the poem or the short story. This allows me, in a second step, to connect the knowledge about the aspects shared by both works and give interpretations in a stringent manner, with all necessary background knowledge already given.