The Rebirth of Woman in Ireland: Eavan Boland’s Quest for Her Female Identity

Eavan Boland is an Irish poet whose poetry highlights the role of woman and her position in Ireland. She exerts a lot of efforts to record the daily life of ordinary women in her poetry. She sees that the "suffering of Irish women throughout history, their human truths of survival and humiliation, and their true voice and vision were routinely excluded from Irish tradition" (Gonzalez, Modern Irish Writers 23). Hence, she refuses the devaluation of Irish women since she admits that women in Ireland had fewer rights than those in European countries. Besides, the Irish women in Irish literature are symbolized for the sake of men poets' masculine purposes. At that time, the Irish women poets were alienated from literary canon. The Irish men poets represented women in their poetry just only as muses. "These muses never speak but they are spoken by an active male poet" (Troeger 24). These muses are regarded as tools for men to express their political, personal and sexual emotions and beliefs. Boland, therefore, explores new images of women that rarely had been examined before in the Irish poetry. She succeeds in producing normal and natural depiction of women's daily life and experience. As a result, she asserts her identity as a woman who has a strong voice among men. She also tries to give a voice for women who are marginalized and displaced of Irish history, especially after the appearance of feminism movements in Ireland.