THE OAK TREE AND THE OLIVE TREE The True Dream of Eva Gore-Booth Angela R, Barone ...

238 Pages·2013·4.32 MB·English

THE OAK TREE AND THE OLIVE TREE
The True Dream of Eva Gore-Booth
Angela R, Barone
Thesis submitted for Ph.D. Degree Award, 1990,
in the School of Communications, Dublin City University,
under the supervision cf Dr. Martin J. Croghan.
One thing in all things have I seen:
One thought has haunted earth and air:
Clangour and silence both have been
Its palace chambers. Everywhere
I saw the mystic vision flow
And live in men and woods and streams
Until I could no longer know
The dreams of life from my own dream.
('Unity' by "AE")
DECLARATION
I, Angela Rosa Barone, being a candidate for the degree
of Doctor of Philosophy as awarded by Dublin City
University, declare that while registered as a
candidate for the above degree I have not been a
registered candidate for an award at another
university. Secondly, that none of the material
contained In this thesis has been used in any other
submission, for any other award. Further, that the
contents of this thesis are the sole work of the author
except where an acknowledgement has been made for
assistance received.
Signed Date_ lj+ ..xn.lffg
Barone
Signed Date {& '^3
Dr Martin J. Croghan
Senior Lecturer
School of Communications
Dublin City University
Signed S ' Dat
Professor Brendan Kenneliy
Trinity College,.Dublin
CONTENTS
BOOK I
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction ix
THE OAK TREE AND THE OLIVE TREE 1
The True Dream of Eva Gore-Booth
Notes 86
Bibliography 98
BOOK II
Ringraziamenti 106
Introduzione 108
LA QUERCIA E L'ULIVO 111
II Sogno Vero di Eva Gore-Booth
Note 204
Bibliografia 224
Abstract
The thesis offers a reconstruction of Eva Gore-Booth's
biographic, aesthetic and existential itinerary, along the track
of her own meditation on "the constant and almost rhythmic
persistence of certain experiences", and of obscure events that,
from early childhood, sink down into the mind and finally reveal
themselves to be integral parts of a Divine pattern shaping the
Self.
"Dream", "Growth", "Love", "Inner Beauty", Hidden Light", and
"Vision", are the foundation stones of Eva’s structure of
feeling, the driving force of her life as poet and propagandist.
Like her elder sister Constance, Eva rebelled against the codes
and mores of the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy in which she had been
born. Constance became a London M.P. but also took the road of
armed revolution, committing herself to the cause of Irish
nationalism; she played an important role in the birth of the
Irish Republic. Eva pursued her belief in the sacredness of life,
all forms of life; in her fight for justice and freedom, she took
the road of non-violence and world pacifism.
The turning point in Eva's search for identity occurred in 1896
when she was a guest at Casa Corregio, George MacDonald's villa
on Italy's Ligurian coast. There she met Eva Gertrude Roper, a
guest from Manchester, who was engaged in the movement which was fighting
for the vote for women and for the rights of women workers. Less
than one year later, Eva left her family home at Lissadell, Co.
Sligo, and went to live with Esther. Their lifelong "comrade
love", in Edward Carpenter's phrase, lasted for nearly thirty
years.
v
The present research examines Eva1s relationship with Constance
and with Esther, offering a substantial selection of Eva's poems
integrated with other documentary material. The excursus also
includes such figures as "AE", George MacDonald, Francis Sheehy-
Skeffington and Roger Casement, all of whom contributed to the
formation of Eva's concept of love. This was the union of
Christian love and imagination, i.e., self-identification of
intuition or intellectual sympathy with others".
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Grateful acknowledgement is made to the Publishers mentioned
below, for permission to quote from the texts here listed (full
bibliographical reference in the Bibliography):
E. Gore-Booth, CP (Longman); C. Gore-Booth, Countess Markievicz,
PL (Longman); G Lewis, EG-B&ER (Unwin Hyman Ltd.); S. O'Faolain,
CM (Curtis Brown Ltd.); A. Marreco, RC (George Wedenfeld &
Nicolson Ltd.); J. Van Voris, CdM (University of Massachusetts
Press); "AE" L (Blackie Publishing Group); C. Day Lewis, WR
(Peters Fraser & Dunlop Group Ltd.); G.M. Hopkins, MP (J. M.
Dent Publishers); S. O'Casey, A (Macmillan Publishers); R.
Pazzi,VG (Garzanti Editore); M. Warner, LF (Peters Fraser &
Dunlop); W.B. Yeats, CP (Macmillan Publishers); W.B. Yeats,
Coll. Letters, John Kelly and Eric Domville, eds., Vol. 1 (1865-
1895) , (Oxford University Press).
The quotes from Constance Gore-Booth's 'Diary 1892-1893' and
'Prison Diary' (unpublished) are by kind permission of the
National Museum of Ireland.
I am also grateful to the staff of the Biblioteca Civica
Internazionale, Bordighera, the Fawcett Library, the Mary Evans
Picture Library, and The National Library of Ireland.
I would like to express my deep gratitude to Sr. M. St. Dominic,
Piero De Angeli, Paul Doyle, Nessa Doran, Elizabeth Kirwan,
Jacqueline Mulhallen, Seamus Scully, John Teahan, and Agnes Toher
for their encouragement and information.
Heartfelt thanks to Miss Aideen Gore-Booth for the privilege of
consulting the Gore-Booth family album and of taking photographs
at Lissadell House.
Padraig 0 Snodaigh deserves a special mention for his
stimulating suggestions and patient revision of the manuscript.
Finally, I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr Martin J.
Croghan, for his scholarly rigour, and enthusiasm.
I am responsible for the translations and for any mistakes that
may be found in the present work.
INTRODUCTION
The seed of the work here presented was sown in my mind in the
autumn of 1983, during study-leave in Dublin. Through my research
on Sean O'Casey's Autobiographies, I took a deeper interest in
Constance Georgina Gore-Booth, Countess Markievicz, and, through
her prison letters, in the personality of her sister, Eva Selina.
However, the investigation would not have taken place if I had
not met, and been encouraged by Padraig 0 Snodaigh, Seamus
Scully, Alma Sabatini and Robert Braun. In their knowledge,
insight, and trust was my incentive, which, at a later stage, I
transferred into the imagination of two artists, Antonio Andriani
and Glauco Lendaro Camiless - the former set to music three poems
by Eva, the latter developed a graphic project on the theme of
the present work.
The hope is that this joined venture will contribute - no matter
in what measure - to redressing the unjustifiable neglect in
which Eva's poetry has been left, and to raising interest in
further studies both in Ireland and Italy.
Eva died in London, at the age of 56, on 30 June, 1926.
Immediately after her death, her elder sister, Constance, wrote
to Esther Gertrude Roper, Eva's lifelong companion for nearly
thirty years, who was "bringing out another book of Eva's poems":
The only thing we can do to horn ur her is to make her
work known and help her to immortality here in this
world through the ideals she lived for.
It seems to me that it is almost a test of a person's
soul-worth, if - reading her - they understand. So
many more do than I ever dreamed of. (CP, 314). [1]
THE OAK TREE AND THE OLIVE TREE
The True Dream of Eva Gore-Booth
Here then was a dream and after the dream,
a waking experience and a message.
The above-quoted words are the best key to the world of Eva
Selina Gore-Booth, to the substance of her dream and to the
vision which she engaged herself to turn into reality throughout
her life. The excerpt is from The Gate of Horn, written in a
shaky hand by the dying poet. It refers to a dream she had had
a few months before, one of her "true" dreams, ie. those dreams
which, according to a Greek legend, pass through the Gate of
Horn: those are the dreams where truth is revealed; in
opposition to them there are the ephemeral, ordinary, idle
dreams, those which pass through the Gate of Ivory. [2]
Eva, invoking death as the only liberator from unbearable
physical pain, suddenly finds Truth revealed by a dream which
comes out of the Gate of Horn, in the image of the oak tree
growing out of the death of the aeon.. This Truth revealed (cf.
the Gospels: Matthew, 25:14-30; Luke, 19:11-28) transforms the
rejection of unbearable pain into mystic acceptance.
As in the parable of the Talents everyone is given a
gift. You cannot reach Eternal life till your acorn
has grown into an oak-tree. My own limitations, the
rigid walls of my acorn, were shown me clearly, God
wants us in heaven - this was the message - nothing is
spared to get us to grow quickly (without more
incarnations). But the acorn cannot live in heaven, only
the oak-tree. Therefore growth is the main object of Life,
and it would not be real love to save from pain, if.pain is
the stimulus or in some way a necessity of growth. The
acorn cannot become an oak without the destruction of the
1