Presenter(s): Sarah Hovet − English, Journalism
Faculty Mentor(s): Barbara Mossberg
Oral Session 2O
Research Area: Humanities
Funding: Vice President for Research and Innovation (VPRI) Undergraduate Fellowship, Sigma Tau Delta Study Abroad Scholarship, GEO Ambassador Scholarship, Tims Ellis Endowed Scholarship
In the largely male-dominated Irish literary arts scene, the role of women has historically been confined to muses for men’s work. (Examples include James Joyce’s usage of his wife Nora as inspiration for Ulysses and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon’s treatment of his former partner Mary Farl Powers in his poem “Incantata.”) The particular masculine-coded “genius” of Irish writers like James Joyce, William Butler Yeats, Samuel Beckett, and J.M. Synge; the perceived role of women as iconography for the nation and not creators, and the Irish constitution itself contribute to the absence of women from the Irish canon. However, today’s Irish writing scene fosters a critical mass of female-identifying Irish writers through whom one can trace matrilineal literary influence from contemporary writers including Mary Lavin, Edna O’Brien, and Eavan Boland back to their modern predecessors, such as folklorist, playwright, and National Theatre co-founder Lady Augusta Gregory. My research begins by establishing an academic foundation from critical and historical works, then expands to archival research in the Edna O’Brien papers at University College of Dublin and feminist Attic Press collection at National University of Ireland Galway. My work intends to establish that today’s female Irish writers, from Claire Louise-Bennett to Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill, produce significant models of female consciousness, exploring sexuality, motherhood, and more with a frankness significant for a culture prevalently Catholic and feeling the effects of censorship laws late into the 20th century, as well as with formal innovation. Furthermore, their vibrant voices comprise the natural evolution of what is actually a long tradition of meritorious female Irish writers who have been eclipsed due to sociohistorical factors, thus bringing these women’s history back into the light for new criticism, and creating a more complex understanding of modern Irish literature as a whole.