Pilar Villar Argáiz, Eavan Boland's Evolution As an Irish Woman Poet: An Outsider within an Outsider's Culture
2007. Lewiston, Queenston, Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press
ISBN10: 0-7734-5383-0 ISBN13: 978-0-7734-5383-8 Pages: 448
Description
This study re-evaluates Boland's work in the dual light of two important ideologies within modern Irish writing: feminism and postcolonialism. Its main objective is to analyze Boland's evolution as an Irish woman poet in her attempt to overcome marginalization as a postcolonial gendered subject. By bringing together postcolonial and feminist theorizations of identity, this study demonstrates how Boland gradually undermines the (presumably authentic) representations of woman? and nation? she has inherited. By describing Irishness? and womanhood? in terms of fluidity and hybridity, Boland's poetry exposes the constructedness of identity itself and allows the speaker to find a place freed from authoritative ideologies. In so doing, Boland manages to present a background where new decolonizing identities can emerge. In other words, it is here where she finds her way out as an outsider within an outsider's culture.
Table of Contents
Preface by Dr. Eibhear Walshe
Acknowledgements
1 Introduction
2 Boland's Initial Steps as a Woman Poet
3 Boland's Reaffirmation of Sexual Difference
4 Boland's Artistic Decolonization
5 Conclusion
Appendix: An Interview with Eavan Boland
Bibliography
Index