“This sudden Irish fury”: beleaguered spaces in Eavan Boland’s Domestic Violence

Miranda: Revue Pluridisciplinaire du Monde Anglophone

关键词: Eavan Boland;    poetry;    Northern Ireland;    the Troubles;   

DOI  :  10.4000/miranda.16298

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

In her collection Domestic Violence, Eavan Boland examines the resonance of public conflicts in the private sphere, with specific emphasis on the Troubles. The link between political and domestic is made through an image also present in Seamus Heaney’s poetry, the antagonists as a feuding couple trying to negotiate a difficult truce. Building on that premise, Boland develops two series of images already contained in her previous work: kitchens and utensils, which symbolize a retreat or an escape from war into private spaces, and fields and gardens, which bear the traces of past conflicts. The former set of images elicits a vision of war pushing at the boundaries of domestic life, hence an inside-outside dichotomy. The latter, which is rooted in Irish soil, implies a polarity of above and below, preservation and revival. This double vision also corresponds to a historical sequence of invasion and assimilation, so that any outburst of violence is perceived as a resurgence of ingrained atavistic tendencies. In either case, Boland depicts an intimacy under siege, suggesting that the only place where violence can be contained is the written page.

【 授权许可】

Unknown