On The Female Consciousness In Bryan Merriman's The Midnight Court

Brian Merriman was known as an Irish language poet and a teacher of mathematics. His poem the Midnight Court is widely acclaimed as the greatest comic poem in the history of Irish literature. The poem was written in 1780, the time when Ireland was under the colonial rule of Great Britain. Influenced by the Enlightenment Movement in Europe in the eighteenth century, a call for liberation and independence was under way among the Irish in the soul-stirring age. By employing the form of the vision poem, Merriman devises a midnight court, exploring women's lives and exposing their oppression by the patriarchal society. This thesis is to explore Brian Merriman's feminist consciousness embodied in The Midnight Court by applying feminist literary theories and criticism. Feminist criticism is a women-centered criticism, focusing on female images, female reading and writing, and exploring the twisted female images and feminist consciousness in the male-authored works. Through the analysis of the poem, we,find that Brian Merriman has feminist consciousness which is rare in other male writers in the eighteenth century. In that patriarchal age, women were despised and discarded in a marginal position, however, by purposely placing women in the center of his poem, Merriman endows them with a central position.By exposing the corruption of the patriarchal society in the 18th century Ireland, such as late marriage, clerical celibacy, dowry system and bastardy prejudice, Merriman denounces this patriarchal system as unjust and gender-biased, which oppressed and injured women for centuries. To women's defiance against the patriarchal society, Merriman expresses his great sympathy and support. At the same time, by exposing men's hostility to women, and women's rebellion against men in the patriarchal society, Merriman fiercely attacks the inharmonious, and even confrontational gender relations in the patriarchal society. Besides, Merriman shows his appreciation for women's capacity and femininity embodied in The Midnight Court, which is contrary to the distorted feminine prototype extolled in the patriarchal society.Merriman is a feminist precursor who forebodes the first wave of Feminist Movement at the end of the eighteenth century. It is Merriman's feminist consciousness and his concern for women's destiny that contribute an important factor to the success and popularity of the poem since its publication. And it also helps us understand the hidden history of the eighteenth century Ireland.