Close Reading Research Articles

Recasting a forest legend in the event of climate crisis: Jungle Nama (2021), Sundarbans, and the art of storytelling

ABSTRACT The article examines Amitav Ghosh’s retelling of an ancient forest legend in Jungle Nama (2021) by contextualising it within the current global climate crisis. By highlighting the oral tradition of indigenous narratives and marking the significance of dwipodi-poyar meter in Ghosh’s adaptation, I draw attention to the folktale as a literary form suitable for articulating the climate question. Following a close textual reading of Jungle Nama, the article presents some broader arguments about the relationship between literature and climate crisis, storytelling and community-building, capitalist realism and alternative sustainable futures – specifically from the postcolonial vantage point of the global South.

Emotions as testimony: Documenting the psychological aspects of witnessing in an early survivor historical commission

In 1945–1946, nine Polish former prisoners of Nazi concentration camps (one Jewish and eight non-Jewish) living in Sweden as refugees were employed to record other Jewish and non-Jewish Poles’ experiences of persecution for history and justice. Although none of these individuals were psychologists, they believed recording the psychological aspects of witnessing was essential to their documentation work. The written testimonies they recorded, which are preserved in the archive of the Polish Research Institute in Lund, Sweden (PIZ), thus include revealing and often caring comments about the witnesses’ emotions and emotional responses during the interviews. I argue that this method made emotions integral to the testimonies and validated emotions as testimony. The significance of this argument is magnified when non-Jewish Poles interviewed Jewish Poles and vice versa since the comments reveal how they were relating to one another on a personal and sensitive level. This article builds on the author’s previous and ongoing analyses of these witness testimonies through close readings of the comments that consider the psychological aspects of witnessing. By contextualizing these comments and the testimonies they refer to alongside theories on the value of emotions for knowledge, the author explores what knowledge the method of recording witness testimonies contributed to creating in the early postwar period and what knowledge it creates now.

‘Feedback Means the World to Me’: Constructing Proximity in Canon Compliant Fanfiction

This paper examines the linguistic strategies used to create proximity within the online fandom community. The study applies close reading techniques to analyse three works of fanfiction belonging to a canon-compliant subgenre. It explores how authors from diverse socio-cultural backgrounds establish a relationship with their readers by demonstrating their affiliation with fandom (proximity of membership) and dedication to the source material (proximity of commitment). To investigate these techniques, the study employs the model of proximity defined by Hyland (2010), extended by the findings of Suau-Jiménez (2019, 2020). The analysis includes both the main text and the metatext, revealing similarities in the techniques used by the authors to establish proximity through organisation, argument, credibility, stance and engagement.

Spaces of S(h)elf-Care: Therapeutic Narrative Readings in Anorexia

This paper delves into the realm of art therapy, offering tentative evidence of the effectiveness of reading in anorexia nervosa (AN) recovery based on an analysis rooted in three theoretical frameworks: cognitive literary criticism, space studies and the perspective of care. In the first part, AN is discussed as a spatial disorder and one which compromises practices of care. The second partof the paper explores narrative transportation theory, a cognitive literary studies paradigm that explores the various psychological effects of reading, and on mental imagery, a concept that focuses on the mental effects of descriptions and imagery in books. By drawing on research from these spheres, this theoretical framework serves as a valuable lens to frame the third part of the paper, which addresses the pivotal role played by reading in Laura Freeman’s journey toward overcoming anorexia, as depicted in her autobiographical work The Reading Cure: How Books Restored my Appetite (2018). In particular, thestudy offers a close reading of some of the narratives Freeman addresses in her work, meaning the fiction and non-fiction texts she found inspiring, which exclude poetry and drama, and which stimulated her appetite through vivid descriptions of food.

Teadvuse dekonstruktsioon: Husserli fenomenoloogia Nietzsche ja Derrida vahel / Deconstruction of Consciousness: Husserl’s Phenomenology between Nietzsche and Derrida

Teesid: Käesolev artikkel uurib, kuidas Friedrich Nietzsche ning Jacques Derrida dekonstrueerivad husserliku teadvuse kui vahetu (enese)teadmise asupaiga. Derrida, kes on tuntud kui poststrukturalismi üks klassikuid, alustas fenomenoloogia rajaja Edmund Husserli tõlgendaja ja uurijana. Oma teoses „Hääl ja fenomen“ dekonstrueerib ta üksikasjalikult Husserli märgi- ja teadvusekäsituse. Huvitaval kombel kattub see dekonstruktsioon teatud olulistes osades Nietzsche teadvusekriitikaga ta teoses „Rõõmus teadus“. Artiklis tõlgendan ning analüüsin nende kolme autori asjassepuutuvaid tekstikohti ning avan selle kaudu nii Nietzsche, Husserli kui ka Derrida filosoofiat tervikuna ning ühtlasi fenomenoloogia suhet poststrukturalismi. In this article, I investigate the main arguments by means of which Friedrich Nietzsche and Jacques Derrida deconstruct Husserlian consciousness as the site of immediate (self)knowledge. Jacques Derrida is known as one of the founders of poststructuralism, but it is by no means uninteresting that he started as a Husserl scholar and interpreter, translating his text ‘Origins of Geometry’ into French and writing a long and detailed introduction to it. In his early book Speech and Phenomena (1967), Derrida deconstructs Husserl’s conceptions of signs and consciousness. Interestingly, this deconstruction, in quite essential and crucial ways, reminds us of Nietzsche’s criticism of the self-presence of consciousness in his book The Gay Science. By close reading of some of the texts of these three authors the intricate relationship between phenomenology and poststructuralism will be explained and historically situated. The article first analyses Husserl’s conception of signs and what it means for the constitution of meaning in human consciousness. Husserl distinguishes between meaningful signs, expressions, and indicative signs, indications which do not have meaning by themselves, but which intimate, point towards meaning. Husserl then shows that in communication, expression as a meaningful sign always has to function also as an indication because it indicates to the hearer that the speaker has such and such sense-giving inner experiences and intentions. He then poses the question about the real and pure sphere of meaning where all kinds of indications are excluded. This sphere according to him is ‘solitary mental life’ (das einsame Seelenleben). It is important for Husserl that in solitary mental life we do not use real speech, real signifiers anymore, but only imagined words, (re)presented speech, thus the ideal form of signifiers. This reduction of the signifier is crucial for Husserl because it helps to guarantee the purity and presence of the meanings. Thus, in solitary mental life, where we only use imagined words, the meanings are instantly present to us since they do not have to make a detour over or through material signifiers. In his elaborate analysis Derrida deconstructs the main distinctions that Husserl makes in the first of the ‘Logical Investigations’, that is, the distinction between expression and indication, and real speech and imagined speech. The article provides a detailed analysis of Derrida showing that also in the solitary mental life we cannot really get rid of indications as meaningless signs, and hence the purity of meaning is contaminated and the self-presence of the subject undermined. In other words, Derrida demonstrates that the idea of ‘imagined words’ always presupposes a number of representations which intervene in the supposed purity of the solitary mental life. The solitary mental life cannot thus free itself from communication because it also communicates—namely, to itself, and by means of the ‘imagined speech’ which always refers back to real speech. The article then shows that with his argumentation and critique of Husserl, especially with his insight regarding the functioning of signs, Derrida in a way also lays the theoretical ground for Roland Barthes’s famous short essay ‘The Death of the Author’ (which itself seems to lack that ground) which is the main text of poststructuralist theory of literature. The last part of the article analyses Nietzsche’s criticism of consciousness and shows that it anticipates many of the same points that Derrida made in his criticism. Nietzsche calls his critique ‘possibly extravagant conjecture’ and demonstrates that consciousness is always, and already from the very beginning, contaminated by relations to the other, thus, by communication and language, and precisely for that reason it can never serve as a site of immediate (self)knowledge that Husserl was looking for. The similarities between Nietzsche’s and Derrida’s arguments are not necessarily surprising because from early on Derrida was an avid reader of Nietzsche.

Metaphorical Expression in John Clare's Poems: I Am, The Skylark, and Remembrances

This study investigates “Metaphorical Expression in John Clare’s Poems: I Am, The Skylark and Remembrances.” The purpose of this study is to identify the types of metaphors in John Clare’s selected works. This research adopts a qualitative approach. Data collection involved accessing the texts of these poems through reliable online literary archives, articles, and books during the research period of May to July 2024. The researcher conducted a close reading of each poem to document metaphorical expressions, which were then classified into Structural, Orientational, or Ontological types based on Lakoff and Johnson’s framework. A total of 11 metaphors were identified: 4 Ontological (36.4%), 3 Structural (27.3%), and 4 Orientational (36.4%). The most frequently used type of metaphor was Ontological Metaphors and Orientational Metaphors, reflecting Clare’s technique of personifying abstract concepts like sorrow and memory. This study highlights Clare’s mastery of metaphor to explore themes of identity and nature, offering a detailed view of his poetic style.

Alternative Health and Conventional Medicine Discourse About Cancer on TikTok: Computer Vision Analysis of TikTok Videos.

Health misinformation is abundant online and becoming an increasingly pressing concern for both oncology practitioners and patients with cancer. On social media platforms, including the popular audiovisual app TikTok, the flourishing alternative health industry is further contributing to the spread of misleading and often harmful information, endangering patients' health and outcomes and sowing distrust of the medical community. The prevalence of false and potentially dangerous treatments on a platform that is used as a quasi-search engine by young people poses a serious risk to the health of patients with cancer. This study seeks to examine how cancer discourse on TikTok differs between alternative health and conventional medicine videos. It aims to look beyond mere facts and falsehoods that TikTok users may utter to understand the visual language and format used in the support of both misleading and truthful narratives, as well as other messages. Using computer vision analysis and subsequent qualitative close reading of 831 TikTok videos, this study examined how alternative health and conventional medicine videos on cancer differ with regard to the visual language used. Videos were examined for the length of time and prominence in which faces are displayed, as well as for the background setting, location, and dominant color scheme. The results show that the alt-health and conventional health samples made different use of the audiovisual affordances of TikTok. First, videos from the alternative health sample were more likely to contain a single face that was prominently featured (making up at least 7.5% of the image) for a substantial period of time (35% of the shots), with these testimonial-style videos making up 28.5% (93/326) of the sample compared to 18.6% (94/505) of the conventional medicine sample. Alternative health videos predominantly featured cool tones (P<.001) and were significantly more likely to be filmed outdoors (P<.001), whereas conventional medicine videos were more likely to be shot indoors and feature warm tones such as red, orange, or yellow. The findings of this study contribute to an increased understanding of misinformation as not merely a matter of individual falsehoods but also a phenomenon whose effects might be transported through emotive as well as rational means. They also point to influencer practices and style being an important contributing factor in the declining health of the information environment around cancer and its treatment. The results suggest that public health efforts must extend beyond correcting false statements by injecting factual information into the online cancer discourse and look toward incorporating both visual and rational strategies.

Henry Bibb’s (Dis)claiming Family: Malinda as a Case Study of Black Women’s Symbolic Annihilation in Antebellum Literature

Existing scholarship on the autobiography Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb prioritizes Bibb’s masculinity and the impact of slavery on Black families, often overlooking the complex experiences of enslaved Black women such as Bibb’s first wife Malinda within such a narrative. Amy Lewis’s article “Who’ll Speak for Malinda?” distinguishes itself by offering an alternative narrative focusing on Malinda’s experience. My paper builds on Lewis’s work by arguing that despite condemning slavery, Bibb’s narrative inadvertently perpetuates Malinda’s symbolic annihilation. Through a close reading of Bibb, my study attempts to reveal how enslaved women’s experiences are often omitted, trivialized, and condemned in American antebellum literature. By devoting particular attention to the “symbolic annihilation” of enslaved women, this paper responds to Amy Lewis’s call for alternate narratives and offers a critical shift in reading and interpreting depiction and omission of Black women in ex-enslaved narratives throughout nineteenth-century antebellum America. This approach has the potential to uncover the complex realities of Black women to offer valuable insights into their lives and experiences, thus challenging dominant interpretations of slave narratives.

Vegetal Delights: The Phytopoetics of Ross Gay

This article explores the poetics at work in Black American poet Ross Gay’s contemporary two-volume Book of Delights (2019 and 2023). I argue that his delights are phytopoetic, which describes moments when plants impact the human imagination and, by extension, shape human culture and aesthetic production, such as literary texts. Such phytopoetic processes are moments of co-creation, involving plants both as engaged in poietic making and in the shaping of the poetics of a given text. By examining patterns of form in Gay’s prose and close reading some of his delights that center on plants, this article unfolds Gay’s specific phytopoetics and shows that the delights are a genre that operates on plant time: seasonal, cyclical, and rooted in growth. As such, the genre slows down the reader and draws attention to the delight found in small, everyday encounters with plants and the world around us, even in the midst of overwhelming crises.

Women Representation through Selected Poems of Maya Angelou

The paper aimed to study the representations of women in the selected poems of Maya Angelou. The researchers utilized qualitative textual analysis and close reading methods in analyzing the poems through feminism. The results of the researchers' analysis of the selected poems of Maya Angelou emphasized the representation of women per poem: a slave, an outcast, and a mother. The findings of this study encompassed the importance of utilizing feminist approach in analyzing poems to appreciate and empower women against societal expectations and personal challenges in different complexities of life. The researchers suggest exploring more literature from the perspective of feminism to provide further information about other representations of women

A Postmodernist Analysis Of Hyper-Textuality In Alice Oswald's Poem "Dunt : A Poem for a Dried Up River"

This study explores the concept of hyper-textuality within Alice Oswald's "Dunt: A Poem for a Dried Up River," situating the poem within a postmodernist framework. The central problem of this analysis lies in understanding how Oswald's work embodies and challenges the notions of textuality, fragmentation, and intertextuality typical of postmodern literature. The aim is to uncover the ways in which hyper-textuality enhances the thematic concerns of environmental degradation and the impermanence of nature in "Dunt." The hypothesis posits that Oswald employs hyper-textuality not merely as a stylistic device but as a means to evoke a multifaceted dialogue between the poem and its surrounding cultural, ecological, and literary contexts. Guided by postmodern literary theory, the methodology encompasses a close reading of the text alongside comparative analyses with other works that explore similar themes of nature and loss. This approach is complemented by examining critical texts on hyper-textuality and postmodernism. Preliminary results indicate that Oswald's use of fragmented images, disjointed narratives, and allusions to various texts create a rich tapestry of meanings that invite readers to engage actively with the text, thus reinforcing the poem's central motifs of absence and ecological crisis. The findings contribute to a broader understanding of how contemporary poetry utilizes hyper-textuality as a vehicle for critical engagement with pressing environmental issues, suggesting that Oswald’s work is not only a lament for a dried-up river but also an intricate commentary on the interconnectedness of text, nature, and human experience in the postmodern landscape.

Role of Religious Leaders in Fostering Inter-Faith Dialogue Amid Boko Haram Insurgency in Kano, Northern Nigeria

This paper examines the role of religious leaders in forging interfaith dialogue in Kano. It argues that religious leaders have been framed for mobilizing and instigating their followers for collective violence in response to other faiths in Kano over the years. However, the eruption of the Boko Haram onslaughts on Christians in the Northeast region and planned attacks on Christians in Kano created space for local religious leaders to mobilize their followers to forge inter-faith dialogue aimed at de-escalation of insurgency`s extremist ideology. The consensual efforts of inter-religious leaders culminated in the formation of the Kano Covenant in 2012. The peace pact cemented the fissures between the two faiths and entrenched the novel harmonious relationship beyond faith in the social, political and economic spheres. The paper explores the pedigree and credentials of the religious leaders, their motivations and convictions for fostering the interfaith dialogue. The pact transformed religious extremism into peacebuilding unprecedented in Kano`s history. The paper adopts the ethnographic method of data collection through the distribution of semi-structured interviews to religious leaders and adherents. Focus group discussions and oral interviews were held with community and opinion leaders and stakeholders. Others include close reading of secondary works including media reports.

Remnants of Eternal Possibility

This article presents a new way of considering the poetry of Muhammad Iqbal (d. 1938) by arguing that Iqbal's lyric poetry, particularly the ghazal, should be read as a mode of expression that sets out its own methodology for negotiating the new demands colonial modernity made of the Muslim subject's relationship to tradition. Through a close reading and analysis of a Persian ghazal from Iqbal's 1923 Payām-i Mashriq (Message of/from the East), this article proposes that Iqbal's ghazals offer a lyric method in which the resources of the Persianate poetic tradition navigate these demands on the self and its representation. With an analysis of formal and rhetorical features, mainly apostrophe and the imperative voice, as well as a consideration of Iqbal's philosophy of time and the representation of temporality in the lyric, one can see how the poem reorients the connection between tradition and modernity not as historical trajectory, but as co-constituted in lyric time in an ambivalent, mutually generative relationship.

Projecting the world. The mediated geography of the projection lantern in Belgium c.1900-c.1920

This article studies the virtual world(s) that Belgian audiences encountered through the multimodal mass medium of the projection lantern in the early twentieth century. In contrast to previous work, we move from studying the visual representation of a single place in a small number of projection slides to examining the virtual world(s) that the lantern medium enabled. To achieve this overview, we produce and analyze a database of announcements and reviews of 5673 unique lectures lantern lectures published in Antwerp and Brussels newspapers in three sample periods (1902–1904, 1914–1918, and 1922–1924). Oscillating between distant reading the database and close reading individual announcements, we chart the virtual world(s) of this multimodal mass medium in Belgium: the parts of the globe that became visible – be it in a positive or negative projection light – and the parts that remained underexposed. We show that in this virtual world, the Belgian colony of Congo was relatively close, while it was almost impossible to visit South America. While previous research has underlined the representation of far-away and exotic places, our research demonstrates that audiences most prominently used the projection lantern to take trips in their own country. By analyzing the virtual geography on multiple scales —continents, countries, and cities— we show how Belgian audiences experienced the world through the lens of a particular medium, uncovering the complex interplay between technology, media, and geographical imagination.

Hong Kong as Method of The Grandmaster: Wing Chun, Hong Kong Film to Hong Kong Culture

I undertake a close reading of Wong Kar-wai’s The Grandmaster (2013) to outline how a somatechnics of the body in wing chun, a form of martial art, provides a way to understand ‘Hong Kong as method’. The film shows how the wing chun pragmatism is about bodily positions conceived of as outcomes that follow action. The Grandmaster is based on Ip Man’s (1893–1972) life story. He belongs to a generation of post-1949 émigrés who do not treat Hong Kong as their home. Making do in the everyday is their survival ‘tactic’. Ip would see the postwar Hong Kong everyday as gong wu (martial arts world), which literally means ‘river and lake’. This might help him to develop the pragmatism of wing chun. We discuss first how wing chun might be read as method of survival at least, and then how its wisdom is immersed in everyday Hong Kong. From the understanding of kung fu ( wing chun in particular), we explore a form of knowledge production through ‘Hong Kong as method’. We discuss how Ip, through inheriting the wing chun tradition, also embraces Hong Kong’s everyday culture; the latter is also reflected in its filmmaking culture, as seen in the process of impromptu practice which Wong inherits. The discussion of The Grandmaster extends from wing chun and Hong Kong filmmaking to Hong Kong’s ordinary culture. Hong Kong as method cannot be clearly articulated. If Hong Kong as method can be articulated, it is, to borrow from Bruce Lee, Ip’s last disciple, seen as a ‘be water’ method.

Stories, surviving, and what a poem can do? in Deborah Miranda’s Bad Indians

This essay reads the poetry in Deborah Miranda's Bad Indians as a form of re-storying, a way of retelling stories and reclaiming the historical memory of those stories without abandoning their subjectivities, and without falling into the constraint of rules of determine stories must have a particular ‘structure’; must be ‘accurate and unchanged’; and must always, retellings, represent some sense of ‘truth’. This essay opens with and is primarily composed of close readings of three poems, which include: "Los Pájaros," "Lies My Ancestors Told for Me," and "Ishi at Large.” The decision to structure the essay in this manner is meant to underscore how poetry provides the historical and cultural lens for understanding California Indians history, and for recognizing how California Indian ways of being impact how we read poetry simultaneously. In doing so, this essay illustrates how Miranda's writing refuses to settle with making counter-narratives to colonial logics but is further entwined with the difficult task of bringing certain omissions, clues, lies, shards, into the light and reaffirming their relationality to one another.

Gender Parity in Sa’idu Faru’s Song ‘Waƙar Mai Babban Ɗaki

This study examines the songs of Sa'idu Faru, a prominent Hausa court singer, to explore their potential for promoting gender parity. Focusing on Faru's compositions for Queen Mother Hajiya Asabe, particularly "Waƙar Mai Babban Ɗaki" (Song of the Queen Mother), the research utilizes Feminist Theory to explore how the song challenges the patriarchal power structure and advocates for gender equality. Through close reading and thematic analysis of the lyrics, the focus is on the Queen Mother's portrayal and how it disrupts traditional gender norms. The paper argues that Faru's songs challenge traditional gender roles by celebrating the Queen Mother's power and authority. By portraying her as a wise leader and philanthropist, Faru subtly subverts expectations of masculinity and proposes an alternative based on respect and collaboration. This analysis highlights the potential of music to promote social change and contribute to a more equitable gender dynamic within Hausa society.

Migration and Its Discontents: Study of Leila Aboulela’s Bird Summons

Bird Summons by Leila Aboulela has caught the attention of researchers and media people alike, for differing reasons, though there are a few common perspectives too among them. Their most common perspective is looking at the novel as an immigrant bildungsroman where the childlike immigrants come of age and try to assimilate themselves in a culture in which the hosts are generally hostile to their presence in their midst. The present study is a reading of Bird Summons from a postcolonial perspective. The research method employed was close reading of the text, and the objective of the present study was to interpret the selected text in view of the fictional representation of Muslim Arab diaspora, particularly in the UK. The finding of the research is that the plot, theme, and the narrative point of the novel are a veiled representation of migrants’ discontents with their condition in the new land, their loss of identity, and the issues they face in a foreign land, leaving everything behind, some of them even burning the boat, and feeling lost for lack of assimilation in the new society. The culturally shocked and emotionally unsettled immigrants then start looking all over thinking where they had gone wrong in their decision-making that they have to face such hardships, looking for similarities and differences in the two cultural milieus – the home culture and the host culture – and then learning to unlearn their own language. They realize that it is only the death of their birth identity which can redeem them to live a normal life. The significance of the present research lies in its contribution to the understanding of the neo-colonial, hegemonic social structures ever present in an erstwhile colonial centre, and the strategies of adjustment the diaspora population adopts to cope with the ensuing tensions.

Sufisim in Doris Lessing's The Four Gated City

This paper studies Sufism and its relevance in “The Four-Gated City” written by Doris Lessing. Sufism is an esoteric movement and regarded as the backbone of all religious systems. The study examines how Sufi thought permeates the thematic structure in spiritual and philosophical aspects in the novel. It seeks to examine how Sufi elements are imbedded in the novel, especially in terms of the characters psychology and their spiritual progression, and how Sufism provides a fine contrast to the narratives, alluding to the Western themes of rationality, individuality, and materialist perspectives, making this comparative in nature as well. And what is the function of mysticism within the context of Lessing's progression of her critique of modernity and her portrayal of the nature of being human?. To answer these questions, the research examines the nature of the incorporation of Sufi ideas like the wahdat al-wujud and the journey of the soul in the novel. It studies the characters journeyed in their experiences and how do the songs reflect the Sufi stages of spiritual development. Using Sufism to Critique Western Rationalism and Materialism. The methodology is a close reading of the novel, finding Sufi themes, symbols, and metaphors. A Sufi perspective with special focus on the representation of spiritual progress and awakening is the theoretical framework of the study. Finally, the comparative method employed in this study draws parallels not just between the visualization of the spiritual ascent in the Shikasta, but also in the Sufi classics of Rumi and Ibn Arabi. This research rests on the theoretical foundations of Sufi mysticism and comparative lit-examples drawn from the works of Idries Shah and others who presented Sufi-themed scholars to the West. Using postmodern literary theory, the book considers how Lessing subverts linear narratives through mystical beginnings, which is contrary to Western conceptions of progress and individuality. These are examples from the study’s results which suggest that the principles of the Sufi doctrine function as the fictional and philosophical basis placed at the centre of the novel’s exploration of human potential as a means for social change. Through Sufism, Lessing provides a glimpse of mute-bodied existence, spiritual enlightenment, and unity consciousness beyond the confines of a self-referencing mind. In the mystical experiences of its protagonists, there is a critique of the alienation in the modern world, an idea that true progress is in finding the inner self spiritually, not materially.

“Burn through the parochial states of mind”: Dorothy Molloy’s Illness Poetry as a Catalyst for Change

This article examines how Dorothy Molloy’s poetry inscribes the subjective experience of illness, pain, and female sexuality within ostensibly traditional lyric forms to challenge conventional representations of illness and shed light on the inequities of Celtic Tiger Ireland. The poetic medium is ideally suited to express the painful caesura of infirmity, but Molloy’s poetry also fulfils perlocutive functions that position her cancer poetry as an agent for social change. The aesthetic of the poems collected in the posthumous The Poems of Dorothy Molloy is driven by a socio-political imperative, for the multitude of images depicting debilitated bodies in these verses serves to denounce the problematic perception of terminal diseases and critique the repercussions of entrenched conservative perspectives on the treatment meted out to Molloy and other women in the oncology wards of Irish hospitals during the late 1990s and early 2000s. By adopting an eclectic approach that combines historically-informed close reading with insights from Narrative Medicine, the article shows that Molloy actively seeks an accessible literary form that turns the private experience of illness into public comment and finds it in poetry, which, despite its inherent suitability, demands recalibration. Her verses indicate that prevailing discourses on care in Ireland and much canonical poetic representation of illness necessitate an equivalent degree of adjustment as the medical treatments themselves.