work understand her in terms of a male tradition and this has created a
mode of ëfeminine writingí with which they are complicit and which
would hardly constitute a critique of male conceptions of women.
However, the case is hardly this simple if we read criticism of
McGuckian by Clair Wills, Mary OíConnor, Eileen Cahill, Peggy
OíBrien, Ann Beer, Kathleen McCracken and Susan Porter.^3 In her
doctoral thesis on James Joyce, HÈlËne Cixous addresses the question
of how a male creation of ëthe feminineí Molly Bloom can possibly
undermine masculinism. She asks what impact this has on feminism,
which is a question that can also be problematized in terms of Joyceís
positioning as a post-colonial writer.^4
In his essay Docherty deflects attention from the intricacies of his
example of Molly by shifting his debate to seeing McGuckian as
being like Emily Dickinson, ëa keen reader of the dictionaryí. He
concludes that this is ëstrong circumstantial evidenceí that the
following lines from the poem ëAviaryí (1984):
You call me aspen, tree of the womanís
Tongue, but if my longer and longer sentences
Prove me wholly female, Iíd be persimmon,
And good kindling, to us both.^53 Cf. Clair Wills, ëThe Perfect Mother: Authority in the Poetry of Medbh
McGuckianí, Text and Context, Autumn 1988, Vol.3, pp.91ñ111; Mary
OíConnor, ëìRising Outî: Medbh McGuckianís Destabilizing Poeticsí. Eire-
Ireland: Journal of Irish Studies, Winter 1996, Vol.42, No.4, pp.791ñ811;
Eileen Cahill, ëìBecause I Never Gardenî: Medbh McGuckianís Solitary Wayí,
Irish University Review, AutumnñWinter 1994, Vol.24, No.2, pp.264ñ71;
Peggy OíBrien, ëReading Medbh McGuckian: Admiring What We Cannot
Understandí, Colby Quarterly, Dec 1992, Vol.29, No.4, pp.239ñ50; Ann Beer,
ëMedbh McGuckianís Poetry: Maternal Thinking and a Politics of Peaceí,
Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, July 1992, Vol.18, No.1, pp.192ñ203;
Kathleen McCracken, ëAn Attitude of Compassionsí, Irish Literary
Supplement, Autumn 1990, Vol.9, No.2, pp.20ñ1; Susan Porter, ëThe
ìImaginative Spaceî of Medbh McGuckianí, Canadian Journal of Irish
Studies, Dec 1989, Vol.15, No.2, pp.93ñ104.
4 HÈlËne Cixous (1969) Líexil de James Joyce ou líart du remplacement, thesis
for Doctorat dí...tat (Publications de la FacultÈ des lettres et sciences de Paris-
Sorbonne: Grasset, second edn., 1985).
5 Medbh McGuckian, Venus and the Rain (Oxford: University Press, 1984).
These lines are misquoted by Docherty as the phrase ëtree of the womanísí is
overlooked in his revision of ëPostmodern McGuckianí in Alterities, p.127.