tackle a larger one. Boland turns to irony as her shadowy muse so as
to allude to what was unseen and unheard, in her former misrepre-
sentations as a poet. Ironically, this turning to ëa darkerí style still
takes place within her customary ëlyric speechí and ëcivil tone.í
Bolandís call to irony can be understood in terms of the concept
of ëdouble-timeí and the in-between; as a critical dissonance that
brushes two moments and two perspectives together. Faced with a
double temporality, Boland negotiates in her poems with the ëprocess
of identity constituted by historical sedimentation (the pedagogical);
and the loss of identity in the signifying process of cultural
identification (the performative)í.^61 In view of this, Kristevaís
theorization can be resituated in relation to Bolandís poetry whereby
ëwomenís timeí takes no flight into a sacred and saved space of the
semiotic. Rather, ëwomenís timeí is ironic and two timing. Residing at
an antagonistic inbetween, ëwomenís timeí ironically offers the
potential to deconstruct the patriarchal from within to suggest that the
Symbolic laws of History are less than watertight. Bolandís poetry
swims out on its own searching for authentic alternative names. She
eventually dissolves and ironizes such a plight. Bolandís use of Anna
Liffey reconstructs then deconstructs the figure of the woman as
nation with the effect of challenging and decentering monuments of
identity and History, within gendered national discourse and beyond.
Bolandís ironic move from monumental History to the double
temporality of herstory, from the sacred to the secular, from the
authentic into the differential, is a matter of life and death for the
gendered national subject.
61 Bhabha, p.153.