Estudio Sobre La Poesía De Eavan Boland

Joaquín Rodríguez Massobrio

The paradox of Kathleen Ni haulihan[1]


The following essay is aimed to analyse Eavan Boland’s some of her main poetry themes which will lead us to a deeper comprehension of his work and frame of mind. From my point of view, her poetry deals with two major issues: women’s role in society and the concept of identity. For this same reason, her poems revolvearound a feministic and nationalistic thinking through which she reveals her strong feelings about these two issues. She states “…my Irishness and my Womanhood were metaphors for one another and did stand in a metaphorical relationship to one another as oppressive and potent identities that I lived within and did not want to live outside of.”[2]
Boland believes that there is a sort of tension andfusion between feminism and nationalism that make both keep an intrinsic relationship between them. In other words, in the Irish society the concept of women has changed dramatically if we take into consideration the fact that after the Anglo Irish war Ireland was usually regarded in literature as Mother Ireland, as Shean Bhean Bhoct – Poor Old Woman-, which is far different from the Celtic image ofwomen as an independent, strong and autonomous figures. The change in the image of woman in the nationalistic imagery influences the perception of women since they become a national emblem and, thus, their own dimension is simplified.
Due to this, according to Boland, in the modern age, Irish literature shows women as an object, a passive projection of a National Idea since they become an iconin the construction of a New Republic, an emblem of a nationalistic discourse. Therefore, the feminine literature is ruled by political and nationalistic canons.
In this sense, Boland is inflexible: she wants to destroy the idea of women as an inspiration, as a national symbol that affects women’s role and limits their freedom of choice. On the contrary, she clearly wants to place a new nationalmirror that differs from the ideal woman in order to introduce a more daily and human concept of women.
This idea can be perfectly detected in her work. In her poem “Mastectomy”, Boland describes the appalling situation unleashed by breast cancer and, in so doing, she illustrates an experience that belongs exclusively to women in order to prove that something so dreadful in a woman’s life canalso be poetic. She tries to redefined poetical canons costumed by men which faultlessly depict the subjugation that women suffer in a patriarchal society that deprives women from being the SUBJECT –author, poet- and reduces their role to a mere OBJECT. As a consequence, women’s poetry is always immersed in a sort of “political correctness” that leads women to lose their authenticity when writing.Her iconoclastic attitude can also be observed in her poem “The Shadow Doll” where she reflects upon the constrained position of women in society by portraying a doll as the personification of a girl. But above all, her poem “The Women” is essential to understand her thought about the state of mind of women.
She states: /The hour of change, of metamorphosis/Of shape-shifting instabilities/Mytime of sixth sense and second sight/When in the words I choose, the liens I write/They rise like visions and appear to me/ Women of work, of leisure, of the night/In stove-colored skills, in lace, in nothing/With crewed needles, with books, with wide open legs/ Who fled the hot breath of the god pursuing/Who ran from the split hoof and the thick lips/ And fell and grieved and healed into myth/.Through these lines, Boland emphasizes on the idea of women becoming aware of their condition and dwelling upon it; she encourages a sort of consciousness of Womanhood. In some way, this poem represents a declaration of Womanhood that is conveyed through the illustration of a female writer. She depicts the act of writing through which she reflects upon women’s condition and, in turn, the author...