Abstract
Based on a fluid sense of cultural, political and linguistic identity, “Irish poetry” is an essentially equivocal concept. Theinová’s approach illustrates how the ways in which women have been represented in Irish poetry have not only changed but kept evolving over the course of the past fifty years. An important underlying feature of this development has been the language issue which is construed as a plural phenomenon with diverse cultural manifestations. While it discusses the competing allegiances of the Anglo-Irish as well as the Gaelic-Irish poets, the Introduction also outlines some of the links and discontinuities between the binary concepts of feminism and post-feminism and shows how women poets have explored their position in national and sociolinguistic communities with increasingly globalised perspectives.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Works Cited
Allen Randolph, Jody. EavanBoland. Cork: Cork University Press, 2014.
Bohman, Kimberly S. “Surfacing: An Interview with Medbh McGuckian, Belfast, 5 September, 1994.” The Irish Review 16 (Autumn/Winter 1994): 95–108.
Boland, Eavan. “Outside History.” PN Review 75 17.1 (September/October 1990): 21–8.
———. Object Lessons: The Life of the Woman and the Poet in Our Time. Manchester: Carcanet, 2006.
Bourke, Angela. “Bean an Leasa: Ón bPiseogaíocht go dtí Filíocht Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill.” In Leath na Spéire, edited by Eoghan Ó hAnluain, 74–90. Baile Átha Cliath: An Clóchomhar, 1992.
——— et al., eds. The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing: Irish Women’s Writings and Traditions, vols. 4 and 5. Cork: Cork University Press, 2002.
Boyle Haberstroh, Patricia. Women Creating Women: Contemporary Irish Women Poets. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1996.
———, ed. My Self, My Muse: Irish Women Poets Reflect on Life and Art. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2001.
———. The Female Figure in Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin’s Poetry. Cork: Cork University Press, 2013.
Brearton, Fran, and Alan Gillis, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish Poetry. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
Campbell, Matthew, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Contemporary Irish Poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Collins, Lucy, ed. Poetry by Women in Ireland: A Critical Anthology 1870–1970. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2012.
———. Contemporary Irish Women Poets: Memory and Estrangement. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2015.
de Paor, Pádraig. Tionscnamh Filíochta Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill. Baile Átha Cliath: An Clóchomhar, 1997.
Derrida, Jacques. Monolingualism of the Other; or, The Prosthesis of Origin. Translated by Patrick Mensah. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998.
Dowson, Jane, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century British and Irish Women’s Poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
Felski, Rita. Beyond Feminist Aesthetics: Feminist Literature and Social Change. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989.
Flynn, Leontia. Reading McGuckian. Irish Academic Press, 2014.
Fraser, Kathleen. “Eavan Boland and Kathleen Fraser: A Conversation.” Parnassus 23.1/2 (1997): 387–403.
Gilsenan Nordin, Irene, ed. The Body and Desire in Contemporary Irish Poetry. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2006.
———. Reading Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, a Contemporary Irish Poet: The Element of the Spiritual. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2008.
Gonzalez, Alexander G., ed. Irish Women Writers: An A-To-Z-Guide. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2005.
Groarke, Vona. “Editorial.” Verse 16.2 (1999): 7–8.
Jenkinson, Biddy. “Máire Mhac an tSaoi: The Clerisy and the Folk (P.I.R. 24): A Reply.” Poetry Ireland Review 25 (Spring 1989): 80.
———. “Nuafhilíocht na Gaeilge i dtreo na Mílaoise.” Feasta 53.1 (January 2000): 10–13. Continued in Feasta 53.2 (February 2000): 9–12.
Joyce, James. Selected Letters of James Joyce. Edited by Richard Ellmann. London: Faber and Faber, 1992.
———. Dubliners: Text and Criticism. Edited by Robert Scholes and A. Walton Litz. Rev. ed. London: Penguin Books, 1996.
Kelleher, Margaret. “Writing Irish Women’s Literary History.” Irish Studies Review 9.1 (2001): 5–14.
Mac Aodha, Aifric. “A Talkative Corpse: The Joys of Writing Poetry in Irish.” Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art (25 October 2011). Accessed 11 November 2011. http://columbiajournal.org/a-talkative-corpse-the-joys-of-writing-poetry-in-irish-3/.
Mandsen, Deborah L. Feminist Theory and Literary Practice. London and Sterling, VA: Pluto Press, 2000.
McCrea, Barry. Languages of the Night: Minor Languages and the Literary Imagination in Twentieth-Century Ireland and Europe. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2015.
McRobbie, Angela. The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change. Los Angeles and London etc.: Sage Publishing, 2009.
Muldoon, Paul. To Ireland, I: The Clarendon Lectures in English Literature 1998. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
———. Poems 1968–1998. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001.
Nic Dhiarmada, Bríona. Téacs Baineann, Téacs Mná: Gnéithe de Fhilíocht Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill. Baile Átha Cliath: An Clóchomhar, 2005.
Nic Eoin, Máirín. “Gender’s Agendas: Women Writing in Irish. A Double Marginality.” Graph 12 (Summer/Autumn 1992), 5–8.
———. B’Ait Leo Bean: Gnéithe den Idé-Eolaíocht Inscne i dTraidisiún Liteartha na Gaeilge. Baile Átha Cliath: An Clóchomhar, 1998.
———. “Cultural Engagement and Twentieth-Century Irish-language Scholarship.” In The Language of Gender, Power and Agency, edited by Amber Handy and Brian Ó Conchubhair, 181–221. Dublin: Arlen House, 2014.
Ní Dhomhnaill, Nuala. “What Foremothers?” Poetry Ireland Review 36 (1992): 19–31.
———. Selected Essays. Dublin: New Island, 2005.
Ní Fhoghlú, Siobhán. “Ceilpeadóir, Rí, Nóinín: Biddy Jenkinson ag Caint le Siobhán Ní Fhoghlú.” Oghma 8 (1996): 62–9.
Ní Fhrighil, Rióna. Briathra, Béithe agus Banfhilí: Filíocht Eavan Boland agus Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill. Baile Átha Cliath: An Clóchomhar, 2008.
———, ed. Filíocht Chomhaimseartha na Gaeilge. Baile Átha Cliath: Cois Life, 2010.
O’Brien, Peggy, ed. The Wake Forest Book of Irish Women’s Poetry, 1967–2000. Winston-Salem, NC: Wake Forest University Press, 1999.
O’Connor, Laura. “Comhrá: A Conversation with Medbh McGuckian and Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill.” Southern Review 31.3 (June 1995): 581–614. Accessed 20 May 2011. http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/literary-criticism/9508243323/comhra-foreword-afterword-by-laura-oconnor.
———. Haunted English: The Celtic Fringe, the British Empire, and De-Anglicization. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006.
Ó Crualaoich, Gearóid. “An Nuafhilíocht Ghaeilge: Dearcadh Dána.” Innti 10 (December 1986): 63–6.
Ó hAnluain, Eoghan, ed. Leath na Spéire. Baile Átha Cliath: An Clóchomhar, 1992.
O’Neill, Michael. “Yeats, Clarke, and the Irish Poet’s Relationship with English.” In The Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish Poetry, edited by Fran Brearton and Alan Gillis, 42–60. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
Quinn, Justin. The Cambridge Introduction to Modern Irish Poetry, 1800–2000. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
———, ed. Irish Poetry after Feminism. Monaco: Princess Grace Irish Library Lectures, 2008.
Smyth, Ailbhe. Wildish Things: An Anthology of New Women’s Writing. Dublin: Attic Press, 1989.
Spariosu, Mihai I. The Wreath of Wild Olive: Play, Liminality, and the Study of Literature. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997.
Thomassen, Bjørn. “The Uses and Meanings of Liminality.” International Journal of Political Anthropology 2.1 (2009): 5–28.
Turner, Victor. “Betwixt and Between: The Liminal Period in Rites de Passage.” The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual, 93–111. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1967.
———. “Variations on a Theme of Liminality.” In Secular Ritual, edited by Sally F. Moor and Barbara G. Myerhoff, 36–52. Amsterdam: Van Gorcum, 1977.
———. Process, Performance, and Pilgrimage: A Study in Comparative Symbology. New Delhi: Concept, 1979.
Van Gennep, Arnold. The Rites of Passage. London: Routledge, 1977.
Williams, Leslie. “‘The Stone Recalls its Quarry’: An Interview with Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin.” In Representing Ireland: Gender, Class, Nationality, edited by Susan Shaw Sailer, 29–44. Gaineswille: University Press of Florida, 1997.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Theinová, D. (2020). Introduction: Uncertain Identities. In: Limits and Languages in Contemporary Irish Women's Poetry. New Directions in Irish and Irish American Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55954-0_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55954-0_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-55953-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-55954-0
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)