Identity in the Works of Eavan Boland and Seamus Heaney Many times poetry is reflective of the author’s past as well as their personal struggles. One struggle that poets write about is of identity and the creation, as well as loss, of individual identities. Using a passage from the essay Lava Cameo by Eavan Boland, I will show how two poets use their craft to describe their struggle with identity. Eavan Boland and Seamus Heaney both write poems which express an internal struggle with roles of
giving the victims an identity. As an Irish writer, Boland dealt with the idea of nationalistic politics, and her personal plight of being a mother in the suburbs. Her poem “Inscriptions” and “Child Of Our Time” were both written to give names and faces to the innocent deaths of children by political violence. In her essay “Subject Matters”, and interviews, Boland remarks on how she viewed the political poem and her ideas about motherhood. Boland uses her experiences as a mother to shape how In a
grandfather (3). Though he has not actively participated in his father’s laboring Heaney would have been able to hear the stories of working in the potato fields. As a result Heaney has learned the historical 1importance of the previous generation. Boland relates well with Heaney in terms of a tradition that in her case is more literary than oral. In her teen years after reading the poem “The Fool” by Padraic Pearse she unearths deeply seeded emotions of Irish patriotism: What I see is the way
when he literally flees from his father by "walking rapidly lest his father's shrill whistle might call him back." Stephen's separation from his clique is demonstrated by his adoration of the poet Byron, who his schoolmates (Boland & Heron) deem as a "heretic and immoral." Boland and Heron then proceed to attack Stephen with "a fury of plunges" that leaves Stephen "half blinded with tears." Other violent disagreements with his peers can be found when while attending Clongowes Wood College he is pushed
In addition, Boland has deliberately selected words to use throughout her poem to describe a war raging against the speaker's own body. In the first stanza of the poem, the speaker describes herself stating, "Flesh is heretic/ My body is a witch / I am burning it" (lns 1-3). By describing her body as a "witch" and as "heretic" she personifies her body with evil qualities. Not just evil, but dangerously against religious piety. She continues with the same image of burning in the fifth stanza as she
A Formalist Approach to Eavan Boland’s The River Over the years many different ways of analyzing poetry have been developed. One such approach is the “New Critical,” or the “Formalist,” which is based on the writings of Coleridge. The formalist approach is useful because it takes the poem’s form, which may be overlooked, and analyzes it to see what its effect is on the meaning of the poem. There are other aspects taken into consideration, like who the speaker is and how the author incorporates
Storytelling in Eavan Boland's In a Time of Violence In her 1994 collection of poems, In a Time of Violence, Eavan Boland presents her readers with a very focused set of controlling ideas. These ideas, centered around the concepts of family, history, legends, and storytelling, fluidly intermingle and build upon one another as the work progresses until one notion, above all others, is clear: that the telling and retelling of stories and legends is not only a great power, but a great responsibility
emphasize his individuality and autonomy. “Pomegranate,” a poem by Eavan Boland, draws on the Greek myth “Demeter and Persephone” to illustrates the influence of inevitable changes in human development on relationship between mother and daughter, and periodicity of human existence. To express her feelings, Bolan draws on the motifs of the myth “Demeter ( Ceres) and Persephone’, which refers to the emotion of all mothers. Boland compares her concerns and feelings to struggles of the
Empowerment of Women in Sylvia Plath's Lady Lazarus and Eavan Boland's Anorexic Although the title foreshadows an extrinsic approach, this essay mostly features intrinsic analysis. Eavan Boland's "Anorexic" seems descendent from Sylvia Plath's "Lady Lazarus": the two share common elements, yet have significant differences. An examination of the poems' themes reveals that self-destructiveness can serve as empowerment for women. Plath explores Lady Lazarus' nontraditional view of suicide in
influence and had a lot of “support for anti- Communist revolutions” , the CIA was ordered to assist the contras with military activities. However, excesses made by CIA resulted in Congress ending the aid as funding money started running out. The Boland Amendment, which was signed earlier in 1984, “denied requests of assistance to Contras and prohibited any help from any nation or group.” However, the Reagan administration decided to continue arming and traini... ... middle of paper ... ...rule
The Boland Amendment was a series of three legislative amendments formulated to prohibit federal funding of the Contra insurgency against the Nicaraguan government. It is believed that some at the Reagan administration however, chose to take a rather narrow interpretation of the Boland Amendment so as to have it apply only to U. S. intelligence agencies, thereby allowing the National Security
collection entitled In a Time of Violence. In the piece Boland both reflects on the history of her and her husband’s love and ties it in with the story of a hero who travels to hell. The poem’s form is stanzaic, broken into 7 stanzas with 38 lines. “Love” is rich with metaphor, simile, personification and imagery. The poem makes constant allusion to Greek Mythology, and the author’s story runs parallel to that of Odysseus from Homer’s “The Odyssey” . Boland is able to convey the journey loves take throughout
In comparing two poems on Anorexia such as late poets Eavan Boland and Louise Glück, we look into the lives of two individuals who struggled with eating disorders. While eating disorders are still a problem in the world today we don’t often see the emotional and mental taxes up close and personal. With these two poems on Anorexia, we get to see perspectives of the way women view their bodies that aren’t easily accessible. In reading the two works, there are striking differences and they merit thorough
	In October and November 1986, two secret illegal U.S. Government operations were publicly exposed. In addition to naming other people as illegal operatives, the scapegoat of it all was Lieutenant Colonel Oliver L. North. Only months before he was being heraled in the New York Times as "President Reagan's Man of Action", and now North was being handed the blame of all guilty of illegally negotiating deals with Iran and Nicaragua. As the Iran-Contra Scandal was led into the national spotlight,
In "Atlantis - A Lost Sonnet" written by Eavan Boland, discusses how maybe Atlantis isn 't really necessarily a place, but more a description for things people have lost throughout their lives and are gone forever. In the poem, the author is the person talking, but she seems to be more thinking to herself rather than talking aloud. She 's thinking about the lost city of Atlantis at the beginning, or so it seems, but then after the end-stopped line saying "I miss our old city-" the subject of the
Legends are diverse in their explications and interpretations. A different explanation of this myth describes that Hades raped and then kidnapped Persephone. Ceres turned this world barren just like what happens in winter .After some time she found her daughter, but until then Persephone ate the seven seeds of pomegranate and that turned her into a fertile woman ready to continue the circle of life on this world. Tatjana Pavlov writes in this context Persephone is raped and carried off by Hades into
evening air, fire-eaters. while this one here -- It's our alibi her mouth (25) for all time a burning plume -- that as far as history goes she's no fire-eater, we were never (55) just my frosty neighbour on the scene of the crime. coming home. - Eavan Boland (1982) Since the beginning of time, women have faced an uphill battle for equality with the patriarchal societies. However, during the nineteenth century, many reforms have occurred to raise women to equality with men. More women attend college than
In the poem, “It’s a Woman’s World,” Eavan Boland offers a bitterly ironic interpretation of women’s role in society. Despite the passing of thousands of years, she believes that women remain the inferior sex. She supports this idea through simple, short words that convey a sort of self-mocking irony and outrage at the role women are forced into by men. The poem is broken down into fourteen stanzas each containing four lines. There is no structured ryme, rather lines and stanzas flow into each
John Hollander’s poem, “By the Sound,” emulates the description Strand and Boland set forth to classify a villanelle poem. Besides following the strict structural guidelines of the villanelle, the content of “By the Sound” also follows the villanelle standard. Strand and Boland explain, “…the form refuses to tell a story. It circles around and around, refusing to go forward in any kind of linear development” (8). When “By the Sound” is examined in regards to a story, the poem’s linear development
beginning to end. The actors and actresses in the movie did an outstanding job representing the roles that they were playing. Liam Neeson was an excellent Michael Collins and even bared quite a resemblance. Aiden Quinn played the role of Harry Boland and Julia Roberts played the role of Kitty Kierman. An important stand out role of Eamon de Valera was played by Alan Rickman. This film portrays Michael Collins as an Irish Patriot fighting to gain independence from the British Empire. The film