Eavan Boland: Themes
Good morning fifth year students. I am here today, as I have been asked to speak to you about the poetry of Eavan Boland.
Eavan Boland is one of Irelands most distinguished and highly regarded poets. Born in Dublin, in 1944, she spent several years of her childhood in England where her father was a diplomat
She later returned to Dublin where she attended Trinity College and began to write poetry and published her first book of poetry ‘New Territory’ at the age of twenty two.
Her life changed however when she married and moved to the suburb of Dundrum to bring up her child. She found herself occupying two very different roles, the role of a mother and wife, and the role as a poet. She turned away from the romantic and traditional poetry she wrote during college and began to explore this ‘ordinary world’. As she continued to write, she won more and more attention establishing Boland as a woman writing about a woman’s experience, something that was extremely rare in Irish poetry. Major themes which dominate many of her poems are history and it’s victims, love and marriage. These themes as well as aspects of her poetry such as symbolism, use of mythology and effective imagery make her poetry unique and enjoyable to read.
A major influence on Boland’s poetry is history, and in several of her poems, this is a major theme. We see her work paying tribute to the history’s victims, to those who have struggled and or lost their lives over the centuries. And very often Bolands sympathy lies in particular with the victims who lie ‘outside history’, whose death and sufferings are forgotten about and unrecorded in history.
‘The Famine Road’ is a prime example of this. This is a poem about the powerlessness and exclusion of the Irish victims who suffered during the great hunger in the 1840’s. She highlights the mistreatment of the Irish during the famine at the hands of their British Rulers. We hear the cruel voices of Trevelyan and Colonel Jones discussing what should be
Eavan Boland is one of Irelands most distinguished and highly regarded poets. Born in Dublin, in 1944, she spent several years of her childhood in England where her father was a diplomat
She later returned to Dublin where she attended Trinity College and began to write poetry and published her first book of poetry ‘New Territory’ at the age of twenty two.
Her life changed however when she married and moved to the suburb of Dundrum to bring up her child. She found herself occupying two very different roles, the role of a mother and wife, and the role as a poet. She turned away from the romantic and traditional poetry she wrote during college and began to explore this ‘ordinary world’. As she continued to write, she won more and more attention establishing Boland as a woman writing about a woman’s experience, something that was extremely rare in Irish poetry. Major themes which dominate many of her poems are history and it’s victims, love and marriage. These themes as well as aspects of her poetry such as symbolism, use of mythology and effective imagery make her poetry unique and enjoyable to read.
A major influence on Boland’s poetry is history, and in several of her poems, this is a major theme. We see her work paying tribute to the history’s victims, to those who have struggled and or lost their lives over the centuries. And very often Bolands sympathy lies in particular with the victims who lie ‘outside history’, whose death and sufferings are forgotten about and unrecorded in history.
‘The Famine Road’ is a prime example of this. This is a poem about the powerlessness and exclusion of the Irish victims who suffered during the great hunger in the 1840’s. She highlights the mistreatment of the Irish during the famine at the hands of their British Rulers. We hear the cruel voices of Trevelyan and Colonel Jones discussing what should be