Boland Notes

Cherry_Pie

Here are some notes of Boland for two of her poems. Quick notes are great to have on the day! IF anyone else has Boland stuff or hints, tips ect post away.

Eavan Boland

1. The Famine Road

Two parallel Stories
• Historical Narrative./Contempory Carrative
• Famine

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Gynaecologists Office

• Imperialism – imposing rules

• Colonization – taking over

• Dehumanization Irish people – Make them work themselves to death

• Deny physiological needs (Maslow)

• Alienate them

THEME 1: - English political agenda to exploit while they colonize Ireland.

• Tone – perfectly captures tone of English officers, two letters get across callous nature of English.
• Travalian says the Irish are no use
• Arrogance
• Condescending
• Jones = insensitive
• Imperialist Attitude
• Vivid Imagery

NB: Swiftian Allusion, Make them so starved they are reduced to the level of cannibalism
John Swift - “A Modest proposal”, a panpalt on cannibalism during famine.

• Snowflakes – Irish fall , melt and are forgotten
• Fear , Evocation , Typhoid pariah

THEME 2: Consultants Office

• Patronises patient
• Smug
• Treats the woman as a statistic (1 in 10)
• Dehumanises her just as Eng DH Irish.
• Undermines her identity
• Formal Diction , “One sees…” to keep a distance
• Speaks in Rhyming Couplets
• Insincerity
• No thought/ Echo’s tones of Eng officers
• She is a victim , invaded by intrusive doc, as Irish were
• Poem words brilliantly in terms or imagery
• Lacks organic unity of pomegranate and love
• Reservations about mech.

2. THE WAR HORSE

• Tends to use simile.
• Boland once said she found similae as an obvious form of comparison, metaphor more sophisticated and subtle.
• Horse represents spirit of war , unpredictability of history
• Criticism of our apathy
• Images tends to be quite heavy handed
• Tinkers horse – language of war , loss of war,
• End of poem more cryptic
• Shifts from Suburbia to Contemplation of History.

Africa

Well some themes on Boland are:
her response to violence
Her sense of history
Life in the suburbs, her experiences as a women and relationships
Colonisation
Nature

Her langueage is poised, sensual, evoactive, tender and incisive. The images are chosen delibretly and explored in great detail

I may go throught this in greater detail tomorrow...

Rnger

I'd describe the war horse in one word

N I M B Y: Not In My Back Yard

Africa

Violence:
Her poems often record moments of conflict and violence and more importantly she explores the hurt, injustice and insensitivity that accompany these situations. In 'The War Horse', she captures how we fear involvment and try to opt out. When the horse moves on the speaker tells us that there is a relief 'our unformed fear of fierce commitment gone' and again when the neighbors 'use the subterfuge of curtains' to avoid the issue. Doing nothing is an option that Boland rejects in her poem 'Child of her Time'. she says we must 'find for your sake whose life our idle/Talk has cost, a new language'. In other words, violence has in part been contributed by our own carelessness and we must make sure that we make a stand for a new and more peaceful world. As a poet she moved 'to be part of that ordeal' to explor that darkness that is part of our human natures. Poetry has an important role to play in an Ireland scarred by violence.

History:
In the War Horse, Boland recalls the many victims of war and at the end of that poem the whole visit of the traveller reminds her of 'daysof burned countryside, illicit braid'. That awareness of our troubled history forms the background to the poem 'The Famine Road', in it Trevelyan and Colonel Jones are exposedfor the cold heartless politicians they were, 'the wretches work till they are quite worn,/then fester by their work'. In this poem she records the feeling of terrible suffering of those on these so-called relief schemes and how people were dehumanised by the whole experience. Her focus is different from the narrow political approach normally takenin looking back on these events. Many have been kept 'outside history', she realises that the roads, fields and rivers or Ireland have born witness to a terrible suffering that went largely unrecorded, or at best was mentioned in passing as a cold statistic. Unfortunetly interventions to help the plight of the downtrodden often come too late, 'We are always too late'.

Life as a women and relationships.
Th e reality of the female experience is at the heart of her poetry. Sadly it is an areawhere neglect and inequality made living unbearable for many. One such experience is cleverly woven into her poem 'The Famine Road', here a woman suffersat the hands of an uncaring and insensitive male medical practitioner. Again in the 'Black Lace Fan my Mother Gave Me' the poem hints at how love and hurts and how in the end it brings violation and pain. Likewise at the end of the poem 'Love' the ending is bleak: 'But the words are shadows and you cannot hear me./You walk away and i cannot follow.' The true feelings and expressions of a woman must remain 'under wraps' like the porcelain doll in 'The Shadow Doll' and instead women are made to conform to the norms ofa male dominated world. Her poetry records the life lived by women on the many sprawling new housing estates of the late 20th Century Ireland. She celebrates the ordinary events of life like a 'women leaning down to catch her child wo has run into her armsthis moment' in 'This Moment.' Her poetry resists the isolation and marginalisation of the female voice, a voice that art and literature often ignored in the past. Many of her poems explore relationships from a female point of view and are tenderly and evocitively handled.

There is a mix of the public and personal in her work and all the time she searches for a moral position.

Style:
Her langueage is poised, sensual, evoactive, tender and incisive. In the 'war Horse' the couplet felectsthe imposed order of her estate, yet the run on lines and the horrific symbolism prevent any real regularity shining through and instead unease is created. Likewise in the regular four line stanzas of 'The Black Lace Fan my Mother Gave Me' is made tense by the absense of rhyme until the final stanza and by the frequent short startling sentences. In 'The Famine Road' formality and informality seperate both sections, the link provided by the cold uncaring tone of the people in power and the complete disregard expressed for the victims. In 'The Shadow Doll' the 3 lined stanzas reflect the tight, restrictive arrangement marriage presents for a woman.
Images are chosen delibretly and explore din great detail. The fan given as a presentt becomes a great symbol in the relatioship between her parents.It merges with the blackbird in the final stanza. Images of the past are often recreated effectively and cleverly placed alongside very modern images. Light and time of day are used to suggest atmosphere and figurative devices give the language and images a lyrical and dramatic quality.

Africa

The War Horse:
Theme and tone: violence inflicted upon society, tone is anxious,bitter and fearful.
Viewpoint: The poem suggests the fear and destruction which violence has inflicted on normal ordinary and innocent lives in the community. The horse in the poem poses a considereable threat and the speaker is thankful when he passes to the end of the street. the langueage is emotive and evokes the brutality that accompanies the shedding of blood in Ireland in both past and present. The response of the south, in hiding behind curtains, is reprehensible.
Memorable images: line 3/4, line 15/16, line 22-24, line 28-30.

the Famine Road:
Theme and tone:The barreness of land and of body. Tone is sad, pitying and indignant.
Viewpoint: There are several graphic depictions of misery and cruelty in the poem, counterpointed with the tender and sorrowful story of the barren woman. The hopelessness of the wretchs is exacerbated by a relief committee whose callous and calculated austerity is lashed disdainfully by the speaker.
Memorable imageS: line 1-3, line 12-14, line 32/33, line 36-38.

Child of our Time:
Theme and tone: Violence in society. tone alternates between tenderness and bittereness.
Viepoint: The poem is beautifully structured, opening with a reference to lullaby and song then concluding with sleep. What occurs in between shouldnt have done so, but ithas. The speaker traces the failure of society to protect and nourish its children and accuses it of sabotaging the fragile limbs of innocence in the child world. There are many negative words and imagesin the poem and these are spoken with considerable anger, perhaps with guilt, even by the speaker who realises that we 'should have known how to instruct'
Memorable images: line 2-4, 7-8,12,17/18.

Black Lace Fan my Mother Gave ME:
Theme and tone: Family, momory and language. Tone is nostalgic.
Viewpoint:The speaker's story of her mothers summer in Paris is quite detailed. No doubt her mother had once shared these events with her daughter and now we too are incvited into the story. The recollections are prompted when the speaker notices a blackbird, feeding in her garden on the first humid summers morning, opening its wings. In the poem, the black lace fan preserves the anecdote of her mothers time in Paris. This poem also touches on the relationship between language and memory, each enriching the other.
Memorable images: line 1-3, 13-14,27-28.

Outside History
Theme and tone: the poets movement into history. one is ponderous then decisive.
Viewpoint: Searching the skies, the speaker is moved by her increasing awareness of the 'ordeal' of history and of being 'human'. The poet's movement from myth into history will lead her towards a confrontation with Irish societ and place her in it. The move may well be painful, but enriching nonetheless.
Memorable images: line 1, 7-9, 21.

This Moment
Theme and tone: Motherhood. one is tender and caressing.
Viewpoint: The moment is beautifully visualised as an embrace of sweetness, richness and love between mother and child. The poem builds quietly to this moment of cresendo before spilling over into a series of affirmations: stars do rise, moths do flutter, apples do sweeten and mothers do love their children.
Memorable images: line 11-13,14-16.

Love
Theme and tone:Love. Tone is eager passionate and longing.
Viewpoint: The poem examines love as it is experienced and expressed through varying roles: lover, wife, mother. The poem opens at dusk and suprises with unsettling references to 'hell', and the near death of a child. Love, however, has 'the feather and muscle of wings'. The second part of the poem returns to the present which has 'healed', where love moves 'across our day to day and ordinary distances'. The speaker, reflecting on her life, wonders will it ever regain the intensity of earlier years.
Memorable images: line 9-10, 22-24,33.

the Shadow Doll
Theme and tone: Marriage, life. Tone is anxous and uncertain, not celebratory as we might have anticipated.
Viewpoint:Everything about the shadow doll is perfect to the finest detail of the seed pearls and rose petals; perfect, except that the porcelain doll will never feel 'satin rise and fall', never to be moved or transformed beyond her existence inside an 'airless glamour'.We wonder if the bride to be feels or anticpates a similar stagnation. On the night before her wedding we notice that the speaker finds herslf 'astray among the cards and wedding gifts - coffee pots and clocks', upset and resentful, prehaps, that she is about to be 'locked' into the domestic life. The doll, apart from her kinship with the bride to be, may act as a metaphor for life itself.
Memorable images:line1-5,14-16,17-18.

exiztone

Africa wrote:

Again in the 'Black Lace Fan my Mother Gave Me' the poem hints at how love and hurts and how in the end it brings violation and pain.

Hi, I'm wondering if you could expand on that a bit more. I didn't see any pessimism in that poem; I'm just wondering why/how you do

Africa

Overall, the actual statement that the poem makes about love is positive, but there is an emphasis on the darker undertones of love - the tempest, the suffering. Boland sees the fan as a reminder of the passing of time, the aging of body and the complex relationship between her parents. When she describes the fan itself in the poem, it is seen as 'an interference of its violation', and we can possibly draw a conclusion bout it being treated with violence. The tortiseshell used to make it is a direct contrast to what it is made for- it is seen as a romantic object, and yet it is violence and unnatural occurances that have created it.
Later in the poem the fan is seen as old and worn out- possibly a metaphor for the relationship and how too has grown old.

Rnger

When it comes to A Black Lace Fan and The Shadow Doll you can throw in Boland's use of 'semiotics'.

"The theory and study of signs and symbols, especially as elements of language or other systems of communication, and comprising semantics, syntactics, and pragmatics." so says dictionary.com

The doll and the fan are more than just objects in these poems as im sure you know. Theres alot attached to them.

murfmegan

im trying to write a responce to white hawthorn tree in the west of ireland can someone please help me im finding this poem hard..

randylonghorn

I'm leaving this thread open as there seems to be some useful bits in the early posts.

Please note however that it is an old thread (2005) ... Africa etc. are unlikely to respond to questions!

Rabbitandcavy

My teacher gives class notes, got a copy and a bit of notes from 4th year and this year on poetry