Poetry Criticism | Boland, Eavan - Ann Owens Weekes (essay date 1994)

Ann Owens Weekes (essay date 1994)

SOURCE: Weekes, Ann Owens. “‘An Origin like Water’: The Poetry of Eavan Boland and Modernist Critiques of Irish Literature.” Bucknell Review 38, no. 1 (1994): 159-76.

[In the following essay, Weekes applies Richard Kearney's theory about the connection between Irish Revivalism and modernism to Boland's poetry.]

In his excellent study, Transitions (1988), Richard Kearney explores the tensions between Revivalism and modernism in twentieth-century Irish narratives. Revivalism is associated with Yeats's attempt to present a unity of culture by privileging “primordial images of ancient Celtic mythology which predated all subsequent historical divisions into different religious (Catholic/Protestant) or political (Nationalist/Unionist) beliefs.”¹ Modernism, on the other hand, is associated with Joyce and Beckett's denial of “the possibility of sustaining a continuous link between...

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

eNotes Pass