Eavan Boland and Paula Meehan : Irish voices of the past

History, myth, exile, identity—for generations those have been the themes of Irish poetry, an Irish poetry written almost exclusively by male poets. As women moved in to claim a voice the themes were often the same, though reworked in essential ways. The key to that reworking, the pivot for an Irish women’s poetry, was the development of a female poetic identity. Eavan Boland led the way. In particular, Boland’s struggles as the first prominent female poet of modern Irish Literature emphasize a search for self-identity. At the forefront of this movement and a precedent for those around her, she establishes themes that pave the way for Irish women writers. With Boland, comes a hopeful recovery of the contemporary female literary experience, with the perspective and approach towards self-identity endlessly evolving over time with each new poet. Inspired by Boland, but a generation younger, Paula Meehan explores similar themes of female constraint, yet raises her own distinctive concerns, in particular the division of male and female roles and generational conflict, exploring what is real and ordinary.

Everybody Farts: Celebrating the Body and Refuting Medical Paternalism in Joyce's Ulysses

James Joyce’s Ulysses celebrates all facets of daily life in its refusal to censor raw human emotions and emissions. He adopts a critically medical perspective to portray this honest, unfiltered narrative. In doing so, he reveals the ineffectiveness of the physician-patient relationship due to doctors’ paternalistic attitudes that hinder nonjudgmental, open listening of this unfiltered narrative. His exploration of the doctor’s moral scrutiny, cultural prejudices, and authoritative estrangement from the patient underscore the importance in remembering that physicians and patients alike are ultimately just fellow human beings. Wryly, he drives this point to literal nausea, as his narrative proudly asserts the revulsive details of public health, digestion, and death. In his gritty ruminations on the human body’s material reality, Joyce mocks the physician’s highbrow paternalism by forcing him to identify with the farting, vomiting, decaying bodies around him. In celebrating the uncensored human narrative, Joyce challenges physician and patient alike to openly listen to the stories of others.