Eavan Boland

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Research Paper on Eavan Boland

Born in Dublin in 1944, Eavan Boland is perhaps one of Ireland‘s greatest contemporary poets. She is a well educated woman who knew at a very young age that she was destined to find her path in life through literature. Being removed from her homeland at age five to live in London, she found herself next living in New York at the age of fourteen because of her diplomatic father. In the early stages of her teenage years, Boland met the Irish poet Padraic Colum at a party hosted by her parents. She asked him if he had known Patrick Pearse, an infamous Irish revolutionary figure. He responded that he had, giving her the answer she wanted (Battersby).

Boland's work and her life has been shaped by the need to establish and question identities and relations, a difficult struggle for both Ireland and its people. The role of the poet within Ireland’s history is crucial to her, but so is defining a woman's place in society. She has fought for recognition in the poetic world and has waged a hard battle in trying to have women recognized as poets instead of just the subject of poetry. The battle is very personal, considering she is one of only three female poets among thirty-four Irish male poets. She says,“There seems to be no difficulty in being perceived as a woman poet. The trouble appears to lie in being fully accepted as an Irish poet“ (Battersby).

Boland’s career started early; her first poem was published when she was seventeen, and her first collection, New Territory, came out when she was only twenty-two. In college at Trinity, she perfected her style and became a very enthusiastic part of an emerging poetic movement. By her mid twenties, however, she had left her fiery poetic path. ...

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Works Cited

Battersby, Eileen. “The Beauty of Ordinary Things.” The Irish Times 22 Sept. 1998.

Boland, Eavan. Outside History, Selected Poems 1980-1990. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1990.

Brooks, Cleanth. Critical Theory Since Plato. ed. Hazard Adams. New York: Harcourt & Brace, 1976.

Brooks, Cleanth. The Critical Tradition. ed. David Richter. Boston: St. Martins, 1989.

Coleridge. Criticism: The Major Texts. ed. W.J. Bate. New York: Harcourt & Brace, 1952.

Levertov, Denise. Semiotics and Interpretation. New York: New Directions, 1992.

Logan, William. “Vanity Fair” New Criterion. June 1999.

Schmidt, Elizabeth. “Where Poetry Begins: An Interview with Eavan Boland” American Poet. Spring 1997.

Wordsworth, William. Selected Prose. ed. John Hayden. New York: Penguin, 1988. www.poets.org

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