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
Introduction I
Why Foremothers?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 June 2021
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
Summary
In the millennial year 2000, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin published an essay on the nineteenth-century poet Speranza, claiming her as a foremother. Ní Chuilleanáin asks: ‘what use our female predecessors are to us as writers, what is the function of model, teacher, exemplar?’3 What Irish women poets seek when they conjure foremothers is continuity: a ‘women’s tradition’ that legitimises the writing of their own poetry; influence aside, a sense of ‘the woman writer as embodied, creative agent in the process of textual production’, to use Jennie Batchelor’s phrase.
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- Information
- A History of Irish Women's Poetry , pp. 1 - 23Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021