Taylor, Jane (2001) 'The country at my shoulder' : gender and belonging in three contemporary women poets. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

This
study considers the work of three women poets writing
in English during the
period
1970-2000. I
argue that the poets, Eavan Boland, Michele Roberts and Jackie
Kay
are all
`hybrid'
voices, positioned and positioning themselves on the borders
between different
cultures and traditions. Locating the poets within a specific social,
cultural and intellectual
context the
study considers the different
ways in
which the
poets negotiate these mixed
heritages and how
gender interacts with
their cultural
location to affect the
poetic identities they inhabit.

My
study of
Eavan Boland locates her
as a post-colonial poet writing out of a very
specific historical
relationship with
Britain. I
argue that the effects of
this
relationship are explored in two ways; the political and psychic legacy of
the British
colonisation of
Ireland but
also the ways in
which women in Ireland have been
colonised by
a nationalist poetic tradition. I
show how Boland interrogates these
different
colonisations and drawing
on the work of
Homi Bhabha I
argue that Boland
finds her
own
hybrid
space in
the Dublin
suburbs from
where she explores the
frictions between a number of conflicting positions.

My
study of
Michele Roberts explores the effects of
her dual French and English
heritage on her
writing.
I
argue that Roberts' desire to embrace both
aspects of
her
identity
manifests itself
as a desire to reconcile what western dualistic thinking has
split and separated. I
consider how Roberts advocates a writing and reading practise
which asks us to embrace the stranger within ourselves and so begin to
heal the split
within
individuals
and nations.
My
chapter on Kay
explores how
she negotiates the cultural specificity of
her
location
as a Scottish writer who
identifies
as black
and how her poetry complicates
questions of cultural authority and theories of cultural
hybridity. I
argue that Kay
through
a focus on
`performance' as both theme and aesthetic subverts simple fixed
notions of
identity.
I
conclude that all three poets problematise any simple notion of
home and belonging
as a fixed
and immutable space. Rather they inhabit borderlands, unsettled spaces,
where there is
a constant interaction and reformulation of
identity.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN0080 Criticism P Language and Literature > PR English literature
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Boland, Eavan -- Criticism and interpretation, Roberts, Michele -- Criticism and interpretation, Kay, Jackie, 1961 -- Criticism and interpretation, English poetry -- Women authors -- History and criticism, English poetry -- Irish authors -- History and criticism
Official Date:	December 2001
Dates:	Date Event December 2001 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Centre for the Study of Women and Gender
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Francis, Emma
Extent:	iv, 343 leaves
Language:	eng

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