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.