Question

analysis of "The Veil" by Moniza Alvi ​

Answer 1

Explanation:

ShareIntroMoniza Alvi was born in Pakistan but moved to Hertfordshire as a child. Her first two collections explored her Pakistani background and sense of dislocation between cultures, but in her more recent work she uses her experience to ask more expansive and political questions. 'The Veil' is from a collection, Europa, which is thematically based on the greek myth of a Phonecian princess, Europa, raped by Zeus in the form of a bull. There is violence here, between East and West, between men and women, between humans and land. 'The Veil' is a poem that takes these themes and firmly locates them in the modern era, when the headscarf has become a potent symbol. But poetry is not political rhetoric. Alvi’s poem explores the multi-faceted nature of this symbolism, presenting us with image upon image of things that are concealed, protected, veiled, such as we 'read the newspapers through a haze', so that we challenge polemical and reductive statements.