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Outside History by Evan Boland

Outside History

The theme of this poem is the exclusion from history of those who have been voiceless and forgotten, the casualties of war, colonisation and, of course, women who for so long were denied status and recognition because of their gender. Boland rebelled against the mythisation of Irish history: the songs , the ballads, the female icons of the nation, the romantic images. Myth obscures the reality, manipulates history. It is outside real, lived history, a remote, unchanging image, a false construct. Outside History begins with a recognised truth:

There are outsiders, always

Boland sees the stars as outsiders, they are at a great remove:

There are outsiders, always. These stars –
These iron inklings of an Irish January,
Whose light appeared

Thousands of years before
Our pain did: they are, they have always been
Outside history.

What is clearly established in these opening lines is ...

Posted by: Jessica Linton

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