The White Blackbird; The Marginalisation of Irish Women Poets from Literary Magazines During the 1980s.
Online article published, The Honest Ulsterman Magazine (February, 2018)
[Excerpted]:
This neglect of Irish women poets stems from something deeper within the Irish literary community that has prevailed for generations. The establishment of an Irish Free State in 1922 provoked a drive to create a unique Irish literary identity. This newly envisaged Irish literary culture held very particular ideas relating to the proper medium for creative expression. The occlusion of women from debates relating to the shape of Irish national literature during the early twentieth century resulted in the Irish poem and the methods of critical evaluation remaining highly masculinist and ultimately resulted in the curtailment of women’s poetic agency until as late as the 1980s. Critics working from postcolonial theory have argued that the male domination of Irish literature is a consequence of Irish colonisation which caused Irish culture to develop a kind of hyper-masculinity where men who were colonised felt the need to regain their sense of masculinity by creating a literature culture built on a system of male literary inheritance.[i] These ideas have been explored by numerous critics and women poets alike who have highlighted how the image of Mother Ireland which was a central piece of Irish nationalist iconography acts as a kind of talisman which places the woman as the object for inspiration rather than the creator.[ii] The male homosociality of Irish Literature created a masculine genealogy which passed on sanctified areas of focus such as Irish nationalism, the Mother Ireland trope, pastoral poetry and other ‘universal’ themes. ‘Private’ themes written by those outside this line of poetic succession focusing on the everyday or domestic were not considered to be acceptable sources of inspiration. This mindset resulted in the guise of ‘poetic standards’ often being used to deter women poets from inscribing a new energy on the Irish poem with this practice reaching its peak during the 1980s. (read more here ...)
Article URL: http://humag.co/features/the-white-blackbird
"The White Blackbird"
Article URL: http://humag.co/features/the-white-blackbird
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