Na rubovima povijesti: upisivanje i rekonstruiranje nezabilježenog života u poeziji Eavan Boland
On the Margins of History: Inscribing and Reconstructing the Unrecorded Life in the Poetry of Eavan Boland

Summary/Abstract: ―Outside history‖ is a phrase which marks Eavan Boland‘s poetic work to a large extent. Irish women have always existed at some place ―outside history‖, not participating in allegedly important historical events, made exclusively by men. The experience of everyday life which includes taking care of the household and children, the horrors suffered during the Great Famine, or giving birth to a child in an open field, have not been recorded in any chronicle. In many of her poems Boland records such untold stories, reminding the reader of a huge difference between the two sides of history, the one which is ―officially‖ known, and the other one, the silent, neglected and never retold past. By writing about the actual lives and experiences of women, both past and present, Boland subverts often passive and ―voiceless‖ images, and refuses any identification with the static and stereotypical images of women forever fixed in timeless youth and beauty in the traditional Irish poem. Boland consequently gives voice to Irish women who are finally allowed to live, i.e. grow old and even die in the poem. Her lyric persona thus does not occupy a place which belongs to the margins of history any more, but a place which is now much closer to the centre of history.

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