A Thematic Study Of Paula Meehan’s Poetry

Paula Meehan is the only woman writer who has made great achievements both in poetry and plays in contemporary Ireland.Her poetry is steeped in the ordinariness of everyday life and describes the people who are often marginalized and forgotten in the contemporary Irish society,especially in the inner cities of Dublin.Meehan shows consideration for the oppressed women,the detachment of death as well as ecological balance and the coexistence between human and nature.As a bold and creative poet,Paula Meehan uses open and colloquial language and various forms to demonstrate many meaningful themes,such as time,gender,life,death,religion,nature,and so on.Among them,the themes of gender,death and nature are more distinctive in her poetry.This thesis is designed to use close reading method to study the major themes of gender,death and nature in Paula Meehan’s poetry.The main body of the thesis is made up of three parts.In the first part,this thesis elucidates the theme of gender in Meehan’s poetry from two perspectives.First,the thesis depictswomen who undergo the gender discrimination and oppression imposed by the man-dominated society;then it further explores the women’s awakening.Women in Irish society make their best endeavors to get rid of the traditional norms and seektheir independence and freedom.And the death theme also plays an important part in Meehan’s poetry.In the second part,the thesis shows the eternal cycle of life and death as well as the nihility of death under the influence of Buddhist spiritual practice through a deep analysis of the death of the family members and friends in Meehan’s poetry.Moreover,the theme of nature is an indispensible part in Meehan’s poetry.In the third part,through detailed analysis of the creatures in nature in the poetry,the thesis points out Meehan’s great attention to the ecological balance,the environmental protection and her proposition of going back to nature and blending into nature.The three main themes in Meehan’s poetry are organically connected.The gender theme explores the nature of humanity by narrating the real living conditions of men and women in Irish society.It is the basis of the three themes.Death can happen at any time in any place.As another form of life,death also makes people reflect the meaning of life.The death theme is a transition.Since human is a part of nature,death is a regression of nature and nature is the origin and hope of life,the nature theme is the sublimation of gender theme and death theme.