. . . We love fog because it shifts old anomalies into the elements surrounding them. It gives relief from a way of seeing
Eavan BolandRead
Flesh is heretic._x000D_ My body is a witch._x000D_ I am burning it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on the struggles of identity and the body, suggesting a conflict between physical existence and spiritual or intellectual beliefs.
Eavan Boland's quote explores the profound tension between the physical body and the more intangible aspects of identity and belief. By referring to the body as 'heretic' and 'witch,' Boland highlights how society often perceives the female body as sinful or problematic, and the act of 'burning' it symbolizes a rejection of these societal norms, as well as an assertion of agency over one's own identity and existence. The stark imagery evokes the historical witch hunts, suggesting the speaker's desire to transcend or repudiate the constraints placed upon them by a patriarchal culture.
Themes
BodyIdentityAgencySocietyFemaleFreedom
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in discussions about body positivity and feminism.
More from Eavan Boland
All quotes βPoetry begins where language starts: in the shadows and accidents of one personβs life.
Eavan BolandRead
When I was young, I struggled with authorship: with everything the word meant and failed to mean. Irish poetry was heavy with custom. Sometimes at night, when I tried to write, a ghost hand seemed to hold mine. Where could my life, my language fit in?
Eavan BolandRead
There is nothing settled about a poet's identity. The becoming doesn't stop because the being has been achieved. They proceed together, attached in ways that are hard to be exact about.
Eavan BolandRead
If a poet does not tell the truth about time, his or her work will not survive it. Past or present, there is a human dimension to time, human voices within it, and human griefs ordained by it.
Eavan BolandRead
Our present will become the past of other men and women. We depend on them to remember it with the complexity with which it was suffered. As others, once, depended on us.
Eavan BolandRead
Similar quotes
Flaubert was right when he said that our use of language is like a cracked kettle on which we bang out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we need to move the very stars to pity.
Christopher HitchensRead
This universe, which is the same for all, has not been made by any god or man, but it always has been, is, and will be an ever-living fire, kindling itself by regular measures and going out by regular measures.
HeraclitusRead
And truly it demands something god like in him who has cast off the common motives of humanity, and has ventured to trust himself for a taskmaster. High be his heart, faithful his will, clear his sight, that he may in good earnest be doctrine, society, law, to himself, that a simple purpose may be to him as strong as iron necessity is to others!
Ralph Waldo EmersonRead
Unhappiness. There are all kinds of unhappy people in the world. I suppose it would be no exaggeration to say that the world is composed entirely of unhappy people. But those people can fight their unhappiness with society fairly and squarly, and society for its part easily understands and sympathizes with such struggles. My unhappiness stemmed entirely from my own vices, and I had no way of fighting anybody.
Osamu DazaiRead
Pythagoras, when he was asked what time was, answered that it was the soul of this world.
PlutarchRead
Watch your thoughts as you watch the street traffic. People come and go; you register without response. It may not be easy in the beginning, but with some practice you will find that your mind can function on many levels at the same time and you can be aware of them all.
Sri Nisargadatta MaharajRead