From her earliest awareness of herself as a writer, Eavan Boland defined her identity as an Irish woman. “Even now, my parents seem to me perfectly Irish, completely of their time and place”, Boland wrote in her 2011 collection
A Journey with Two Maps(Boland,
A Journey with Two Maps,27). As an aspiring young student and poet in Dublin in the 1960s, Boland was drawn to a traditional vision of Irish literary life, “imagining myself there” as
“I loved that narrative with its irresistible mix of dark violence and Victorian sentiment” (Boland,
Object Lessons,62/63). The inducement to “write in that cursive and approved script can seem, for the unwary poet”, Boland reflects, “a blessed lifting of the solitude and skepticism of the poet’s life” (Boland,
The Southern3482 words
Citation: Lewis, Leon. "Eavan Boland". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 28 July 2020 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5517, accessed 18 April 2024.]
