Book contents
- A History of Irish Women’s Poetry
- A History of Irish Women’s Poetry
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction I
- Introduction II
- Chapter 1 Women in the Medieval Poetry Business
- Chapter 2 Seventeenth-Century Women’s Poetry in Ireland
- Chapter 3 The Oral Tradition
- Chapter 4 Archipelagic Ireland
- Chapter 5 Irish Romanticism
- Chapter 6 Mary Tighe in Life, Myth, and Literary Vicissitude
- Chapter 7 Masculinity, Nationhood, and the Irish Woman Poet, 1860–1922
- Chapter 8 The Eclipse of Dora Sigerson
- Chapter 9 Between Revivalist Lyric and Irish Modernism
- Chapter 10 The Other ‘Northern Renaissance’
- Chapter 11 Rematriating Mid-Century Modernism
- Chapter 12 Accidental Irishness and the Transnational Legacy of Lola Ridge
- Chapter 13 Crisis and Renewal: Irish-Language Poetry in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
- Chapter 14 The Poetry of Máire Mhac an tSaoi and the Indivisibility of Love
- Chapter 15 Biddy Jenkinson
- Chapter 16 Bilingual Poetry
- Chapter 17 Catholicism in Modern Irish Women’s Poetry
- Chapter 18 1970s–80s Feminism
- Chapter 19 The Art of Fabrication
- Chapter 20 Eavan Boland, History and Silence
- Chapter 21 Paula Meehan and the Public Poem
- Chapter 22 Formalism and Contemporary Women’s Poetry
- Chapter 23 ‘A Song Said Otherwise’
- Chapter 24 Contemporary Irish Women’s Poetry, beyond the Now
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 3 - The Oral Tradition
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 June 2021
- A History of Irish Women’s Poetry
- A History of Irish Women’s Poetry
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction I
- Introduction II
- Chapter 1 Women in the Medieval Poetry Business
- Chapter 2 Seventeenth-Century Women’s Poetry in Ireland
- Chapter 3 The Oral Tradition
- Chapter 4 Archipelagic Ireland
- Chapter 5 Irish Romanticism
- Chapter 6 Mary Tighe in Life, Myth, and Literary Vicissitude
- Chapter 7 Masculinity, Nationhood, and the Irish Woman Poet, 1860–1922
- Chapter 8 The Eclipse of Dora Sigerson
- Chapter 9 Between Revivalist Lyric and Irish Modernism
- Chapter 10 The Other ‘Northern Renaissance’
- Chapter 11 Rematriating Mid-Century Modernism
- Chapter 12 Accidental Irishness and the Transnational Legacy of Lola Ridge
- Chapter 13 Crisis and Renewal: Irish-Language Poetry in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
- Chapter 14 The Poetry of Máire Mhac an tSaoi and the Indivisibility of Love
- Chapter 15 Biddy Jenkinson
- Chapter 16 Bilingual Poetry
- Chapter 17 Catholicism in Modern Irish Women’s Poetry
- Chapter 18 1970s–80s Feminism
- Chapter 19 The Art of Fabrication
- Chapter 20 Eavan Boland, History and Silence
- Chapter 21 Paula Meehan and the Public Poem
- Chapter 22 Formalism and Contemporary Women’s Poetry
- Chapter 23 ‘A Song Said Otherwise’
- Chapter 24 Contemporary Irish Women’s Poetry, beyond the Now
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Across its many forms, from lullabies to laments and songs, the oral tradition in Irish women’s poetry is rich and various. The oral tradition constitutes a body of subjugated knowledge, in the Foucauldian sense, having been subjected to cultural relegation and erasure in the modern period. Addressing the gaps in the tradition has been a significant challenge, then, as witnessed in Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill’s ‘What Foremothers?’, or attempts to unearth the work of Máire Ní Chrualaoich, ‘the Sappho of Munster’. The celebrated case of Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill occurs at the intersection of the tradition and the individual talent, as a unique personal occasion collides with long-established traditions of communal mourning (the caoineadh). Subsequent oral performers too have been no less outspoken on questions of marriage, women’s rights, the Famine, and other defining issues of their times, and no history of Irish women’s poetry is complete without an assessment of their contribution.
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- A History of Irish Women's Poetry , pp. 74 - 88Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021