BODY AND DESIRE IN CONTEMPORARY IRISH POETRY; ED. BY IRENE GILSENAN NORDIN.
Publisher: IRISH ACADEMIC
Published: 2006
Place of publication: DUBLIN
Language: und; eng
Number of pages: 254
Description: The essays in this collection deal with contemporary Irish poetry and the question of the desiring body as a cultural and historical product, a biological entity and a psycho-sexual construction, and not least as an existential being. Drawing upon the literary theories of, among others, the French post-structuralists, the psychoanalytic theories of Lacan and Kristeva, the philosophies of Merleau-Ponty and Levinas, and feminist philosophers, such as Donna Haraway and Susan Bordo. The contributors explore how contemporary Irish poets, both male and female, give expression to what might be termed a reassessment of material experience. With their various approaches they address the various ways in which the body can be seen as an agent of empowerment and change in the work of Eavan Boland, Ciaran Carson, Mary Dorcey, Seamus Heaney, Rita Ann Higgins, Thomas Kinsella, Michael Longley, Derek Mahon, Medbh McGuckian, Paula Meehan, John Montague, Paul Muldoon, Eilean Ni Chuilleanain and Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill.