Scepticism, faith and the recognition of the 'Patriarch-Mother' in the poetry of Thomas Kinsella

摘要

This article argues that for Thomas Kinsella, the relationship between scepticism and faith is one of symbiotic interaction rather than one of mutual contradiction or convergence. That relationship is focused through his career-long engagement with the failures of embalmed idealisms in enlightenment, nationalist, aesthetic, and religious / ethical orders. Readings largely agree that for Kinsella, such idealisms are predicated on the displacement of an originary body or flux of experience. The present article proposes that this body of experience is understood by Kinsella in terms of the female who is occluded within patriarchy; the living female is displaced symbolically in favour of her oedipally-configured counterpart, which in Kinsella is named the 'Patriarch-Mother'. This figure, it will be demonstrated, is related to the Jungian archetypal feminine in his work. The article offers a gendered reading of the terms of relation between scepticism and faith in Kinsella, as focused through the challenge which recognition of the Patriarch-Mother presents to the authority of the poet as witness and guide in his community.