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Thesis (M.A.)--Eastern Illinois University, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 76-80).

This thesis provides a critical edition of the longest extant version of the medieval Irish text Tochmarc Ferbe ('The Wooing of Ferb'), accompanied by translation, textual notes and literary commentary. Tochmarc Ferbe is found in two manuscripts, the Book of Leinster (LL) and Egerton 1782. This comprises three versions of the text: a short prose account in Egerton 1782, and a long prosimetric account in LL, followed in the same manuscript by a poetic account. After a preliminary analysis of the relationship between these three versions, the edited text of the long prosimetric version (LL-prose) is presented, alongside a facing-page translation. Issues arising from the text, in terms of interpretational difficulties, literary features and metrical analysis of the poems, are discussed in the form of textual notes. A particular focus is the prevalence of textual correspondences between Tochmarc Ferbe and other medieval Irish tales, many of which are identified as direct textual borrowings by the author of this text. The thesis concludes with a literary commentary focusing on the role of women in the LL-prose version. It is argued that its depictions of a wide range of female characters challenge traditional assumptions about medieval Irish attitudes towards women, which tend to focus on their supposed passivity and negativity. The portrayals of two female characters are singled out as especially noteworthy. Queen Medb, frequently viewed as the archetypal expression of negative attitudes towards power-wielding women in medieval Irish literature, is shown to receive a positive depiction in this text. Meanwhile, the main female protagonist Ferb is characterised by her use of speech, which dominates the text in a manner almost unparalleled in medieval Irish literature. It is argued that she subverts the usually passive role of lamenter by channelling her grief into an active force, offering an alternative model of positive female action.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1998. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 373-382). Available also in a digital version from UMI Company.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 1998. / Title from document title page. "December 17, 1998." Document formatted into pages; contains v, 208 p. Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 198-207).

This thesis comprises historical and critical introduction to contemporary women's poetry in Ireland and close reading of three poets of its two latest generations, Eavan Boland, Medbh McGuckian and Vona Groarke. It focuses on her perception of nature and attitude to the relationship between the human self and natural processes and objects. The contextual background to my reading emphasizes the feminist critique of the traditional false images of the woman's self in Irish poetry and politics, and suggests new opportunities of the most recent female poetic voices. The culturally rooted simplifying or even harmful connection between femininity and the fertile land or Catholic ideals of virginity has provoked a lot of indignation among contemporary women poets, and caused abundant literary attempts of its re-negotiation. The authentic poetic representation of the woman's sexual and spiritual connection to the land and nature along with women's subjective use of nature imagery belongs to crucial points of this re-negotiation. It is pursued extensively in all of the poetesses discussed in this paper. My close reading considers the political objectives of the poems and notices different modes of their artistic response to the relevant cultural questions. Nevertheless, it emphasizes also the independence...

Based on the author's thesis (Ph. D.)--Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2002. / Mode of access: Intranet. 1. Picking up the thread : locating Irish Newfoundland women in the narrative of migration and settlement -- 2. The slender thread cast off : migration and reception in Newfoundland -- 3. Ciphering ciphers : tracing Irish women on the southern Avalon -- 4. "A good, hard-working stump of a girl" : Irish women's work and the construction of identity on the southern Avalon -- 5. "She made the cannonballs, and he fired them" : Irish Newfounland women and informal power in family and community-- 6. "Humbel" petitioners and "litigeous" lersons : southern Avalon women and encounters with formal justice-- 7. "Whilst grass grows or water run" : testation practices on the southern Avalon -- 8. "To fix [their] character ... in virtue and innocence" : the regulation of Irish women's sexuality on the southern Avalon -- 9. The "Other" woman -- 10. The slender thread cast on. Includes bibliography.

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Edna O'Brien and Marian Keyes are two sexually candid female writers. They are both from Ireland and their novels have caused many spectacular headlines over the years. These female authors have been greatly acclaimed, but also sharply criticised for their outspoken way of writing. However they have enjoyed huge success and their novels have been read by many people. This essay will focus on two of the many novels written by these Irish authors: The Country Girls by Edna O'Brien and Anybody Out There? by Marian Keyes. In the following essay I will focus on Irish women represented in the novels of Keyes and O'Brien, and their relation to men but also to their daughters. In these novels, women are forced into strict gender roles, very different from those of men. Still, even though the older women in the novels are trapped in their roles, they encourage their daughters to develop and grow beyond such roles. I would argue that the novels and also the feminist actions that still occur in Ireland are built upon a long time of subordination for women, and also from the twisted structure in many of the Irish men-women-relationships. I would argue that the rules and roles created in historical Ireland, have formed an inequality between the sexes that still exists.

Based on the author's thesis (Ph. D.)--Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2002. / Title from opening screen (viewed on July 5, 2006). Available in: Gutenberg-e (Columbia University Press). "Gutenberg-e is a series of award-winning digital monographs in history, selected by the American Historical Association and published by Columbia University Press." Includes bibliographical references.