Thank you so much--and thank you so very much for your subscription and suck kind words, it means so much to hear from readers and have their support. 💜🙏
Thank you for this eloquent tribute to two artists who managed to trust their own minds and hearts from an early age. With O'Connor, so far it is easy to see what that choice cost her. With Dickinson, more remote from us in time and more pored over by biographers, it is clear that she gained much more than she lost.
Thanks so much Tara. I am grateful that both women's art perseveres in our world. And indeed--with Dickinson her work is still only now being published as she wrote them, without sanitizing edits that are now in public domain and still get repeated. The most complete compilation of her work in as much the way she wrote them as possible, was only published in 2016! Incredible how so often the world persists in making women's voices small and silent.
Thanks Thomas--and you're right--it's too reductive to say that Catholicism per se contributed to the ban on keening--it's much more nuanced, but still a function of vernacular and folk and even pre-christian rites and customs--especially those held by women--being denied a place in the formalities of more patriarchal orders that were ushered in with conflicts between Protestantism, Catholicism and Imperialism. Thanks for the link to that article--I feel like I could read volumes about what remains of those customs!
Thanks Katherine--I wonder that too, how to stop the social impulse to silence women who speak truth out loud, to work so that their voices can be heard in life as well as in death.
Lovely, raw and powerful post. Read it twice and shared with a friend. 🌲🤍
Thank you so much--and thank you so very much for your subscription and suck kind words, it means so much to hear from readers and have their support. 💜🙏
Speaking of women who lived by their words, I just read today that Edna O'Brien had passed away.
To Sinead and Dickinson and the keening of our collective despair and anger. Thank you for reposting this Freya. What a beautiful homage. 💜
thank you my friend. 💜
Thank you for this eloquent tribute to two artists who managed to trust their own minds and hearts from an early age. With O'Connor, so far it is easy to see what that choice cost her. With Dickinson, more remote from us in time and more pored over by biographers, it is clear that she gained much more than she lost.
Thanks so much Tara. I am grateful that both women's art perseveres in our world. And indeed--with Dickinson her work is still only now being published as she wrote them, without sanitizing edits that are now in public domain and still get repeated. The most complete compilation of her work in as much the way she wrote them as possible, was only published in 2016! Incredible how so often the world persists in making women's voices small and silent.
Interesting article, especially on Dickinson. I wasn’t so sure about the claim that imperial Britain and Roman Catholicism eliminated the Irish tradition keening women, though, not least because imperial Britain was anti-Catholic. So I looked it up and it seems the Irish tradition of keening women was actually a form of popular Catholicism. You can read about it here. https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/15/7/879#:~:text=Religious%20observation%20subsequently%20centered%20on,combination%20of%20voice%20and%20song.
Thank you for the stimulating read.
Thanks Thomas--and you're right--it's too reductive to say that Catholicism per se contributed to the ban on keening--it's much more nuanced, but still a function of vernacular and folk and even pre-christian rites and customs--especially those held by women--being denied a place in the formalities of more patriarchal orders that were ushered in with conflicts between Protestantism, Catholicism and Imperialism. Thanks for the link to that article--I feel like I could read volumes about what remains of those customs!
Lovely tribute, thanks for sharing Freya.
💜🙏
This is beautiful. I definitely sees these women as my ancestors, but I also wonder how we can do better for those who come after us.
Thanks Katherine--I wonder that too, how to stop the social impulse to silence women who speak truth out loud, to work so that their voices can be heard in life as well as in death.