Object Lessons: The Life of the Woman and the Poet in Our Time [Paperback]

Eavan Boland (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 17, 1996

In this important prose work, one of our major poets explores, through autobiography and argument, a woman's life in Ireland together with a poet's work.

Eavan Boland beautifully uncovers the powerful drama of how these lives affect one another; how the tradition of womanhood and the historic vocation of the poet act as revealing illuminations of the other.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Blending autobiography with argument, Boland, a well-known poet in Ireland, addresses the challenge of reconciling her identity as a woman and mother writing in suburbia with the male-oriented political tradition of Irish poetry. Beginning with recollections of her earlier life in Ireland and her grandmother, Boland attempts to explain the woman poet's conflict with assuming the role of creator after having been traditionally treated as an object in Irish poetry. The author, most recently of the acclaimed poetry collection In a Time of Violence (LJ 3/1/94), structures her latest book like a poem, presenting an argument, leaving it, and then returning to it again. This method is well suited to her self-conscious exploration of the duality between woman and poet. Complex and thought-provoking, this title will appeal to readers interested in the craft of poetry and woman's role as artist.?Nancy R. Ives, Geneseo Univ., N.Y.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

One of Ireland's greatest contemporary poets weighs in with a splendid collection of essays woven of sensuous autobiography, convoluted national history, and postmodern literary criticism. If this were a tapestry, its central figure would be a woman surrounded by playing children, burgeoning gardens, and the homey details of family life; she would be posed against a backdrop symbolic of civil war, emigration, and ripening nationalism. But how would we know that woman is a poet? Boland's lifelong project has been to recognize the poet in woman, the woman in poet. In Ireland, woman appears central to poetry, but only as object, especially as an object symbolic of the nation. The ordinary life of family, sexuality, and nurturing love is lived "outside history" (the title of one of Boland's collections of poems) and outside literature as well. What rhetoric will include this formerly excluded life? What form? In her poetry, Boland has answered those questions; here she specifies them in somber and moving detail: the rhetoric must be made of silences as well as speech, and the form must incorporate absences as well as presences. Abstruse as her subject may seem, Boland's crystalline prose makes it accessible and intensely moving. Patricia Monaghan --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (July 17, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393314375
• ISBN-13: 978-0393314373
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #251,517 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Powerful; lyrical; explores issues of women, poets, Irish, October 13, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Object Lessons: The Life of the Woman and the Poet in Our Time (Paperback)

Boland addresses the struggles of a poetess finding her voice in a society which seems to lack a place for her. Through seemingly circular reasoning, she approaches, considers, defines, and returns to consider the significance of the events of Ireland and the writing of others in her own unique and powerful voice. An enchanting read that reminds women of their own experiences while addressing the dichotomy that keeps them separate.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Multi-dimensional Issues for Poetic Consideration, August 25, 2006

By 

Polar Paul "I come and go as I please." (Milliken, CO USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Object Lessons: The Life of the Woman and the Poet in Our Time (Paperback)

The author talks about how-- the history of her country (Ireland), her experiences growing up in London and New York, the culture of poets, and her process of self realization all influenced the development of her poetic voice. This isn't a book just for Irish poets or women, the issues she discusses go to the heart of why people write the poetry they do and what expectations they have in doing so as well as how it influences other poets.

More than anything, her book shows the many ways in which we can find ourselves in different environments and roles throughout the course of our lives. She goes from daughter to exile to urbanite to rural to suburb to mother as well as exploring her own ancestry. She discusses the culture and politics of nations, poetry, and gender.

A good read for people who aren't even interested in poetry.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mature blend of imaginatve and analytical, December 19, 2009

By 

J. Fisher "Dragon Mom" (Buffalo, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Object Lessons: The Life of the Woman and the Poet in Our Time (Paperback)

I just finished teaching this work in conjunction with Boland's poetry. This collection is a rare combination of critical thought and poetic metaphor. The more you know about Boland's poetry, the more you will gain from reading _Object Lessons_, so try to read some of her poetry first before you read this volume. (There are also some very good You tube videos available of her reading if you would like to see her and hear her poetic voice.)

Some of her best known poems, especially "Mise Eire," "Persephone," and her poems on Irish history ("That the History of Cartography is Limited," "Famine Road", are extended and explained in successive chapters of this collection but subtly. The chapter "Outside History" is especially important in understanding Boland's growing equation of her own marginality as a woman poet with the historic marginality of Ireland itself. She begins to realize that she can be a better Irish poet because of her experience as an emigrant, as a woman.