Gendered Spaces in Contemporary Irish Poetry

of gender and nationality not to escape from them but to provide
readers with a critical displacement of ëWomaní and ëNationí in
favour of less fixed and more ëperformativeí modes of identity
formation.

Postscript: Cultivation, Colonization and Cultural Capital

The unavoidable paradox of such an observation is that it still to a
certain extent relies on suggesting authentic readings of the poetry in
order to critique authenticity; that is, to dwell with the truth content of
the poem so as to attack constructed truths. However, the argument
here attacks not simply claims to be authentic or true, but the
routinization of cultural authority whereby it is the norm for one
particular model of identity (Cuchulainn/Cathleen) to be considered as
representative of ëthe peopleí, thus excluding other modes of cultural
expression or other possibilities.
Using the work of Irigaray and Said, the complicity of criticism
with mastery can be acknowledged. The critic risks delimiting the
diversity of cultural expression by claiming an authentic reading of the
work of art in order to gain ëcultural capitalí, so as to claim authority
over a given field or to demonstrate her/his cultivation. The rela-
tionship between authenticity and cultural authority may be visited in
an exploratory fashion by way of Pierre Bourdieu whose work on
ëcultural capitalí notices how consumption of the work of art is

a stage in a process of communication, that is, an act of deciphering, decoding,

which presupposes practical or explicit mastery of a cipher or code [Ö] That is

why art and cultural consumption are predisposed, consciously and deliberately

or not, to fulfill a social function of legitimating social differences.^43

In view of this, there is no escape route for the writer that leads into a
pure and untainted form of art or criticism, but it is necessary to draw
attention to how the writer and reader are complicit with cultural

43 Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste,
trans., Richard Nice (London: Routledge, 1979, 1984), p.2, p.7. My italics.