19 Poetry as Feminist Critique
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Judith Rauscher
Abstract
This contribution is concerned with American poetry of the 1970s and 80s that enacts a feminist critique of male-dominated society and culture and in doing so produces alternative discursive spaces for women’s expression, political engagement, and community building. It discusses texts that employ poetic language to foreground gendered experiences and perspectives, highlighting how gendered forms of discrimination and oppression become manifest in social institutions, relations, and practices. Capitalizing on the self-referential properties of the genre, the poems discussed do more than expose patriarchal structures of exclusion and domination. They also investigate how language can function both as a tool to resist intersecting forms of oppression and as a means to perpetuate them. Writing in response to a male-dominated tradition of American poetry as well as in conversation with second-wave feminism, poets such as Sharon Olds, Audre Lorde, and Susan Howe each developed their own distinct poetics centered on a feminist critique of the formidable power of language.
Abstract
This contribution is concerned with American poetry of the 1970s and 80s that enacts a feminist critique of male-dominated society and culture and in doing so produces alternative discursive spaces for women’s expression, political engagement, and community building. It discusses texts that employ poetic language to foreground gendered experiences and perspectives, highlighting how gendered forms of discrimination and oppression become manifest in social institutions, relations, and practices. Capitalizing on the self-referential properties of the genre, the poems discussed do more than expose patriarchal structures of exclusion and domination. They also investigate how language can function both as a tool to resist intersecting forms of oppression and as a means to perpetuate them. Writing in response to a male-dominated tradition of American poetry as well as in conversation with second-wave feminism, poets such as Sharon Olds, Audre Lorde, and Susan Howe each developed their own distinct poetics centered on a feminist critique of the formidable power of language.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Editors’ Preface V
- Contents VII
- Introduction XI
-
Part I: How Poetry Makes Things Happen
- 1 Framing Modern Subjectivity: Poetry and Experience 1
- 2 Poetry, Politics, and the Politics of Poetry: How Poems Interfere 29
- 3 Tuning in on Sister Arts: Poetry and Music 53
- 4 Poetry and Modes of Humor 73
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Part II: American Poetry and Poetics Up Close: From the Puritans to Postmodernity and Beyond
- 5 Poetry and the Puritan Ethic: Anne Bradstreet, Samuel Danforth, Edward Taylor 97
- 6 Neoclassicism and Nation-Building: The Poetry of Phillis Wheatley and Philip Freneau 113
- 7 The Price of Poetry: Horton, Larcom, Longfellow, Lowell, Holmes 131
- 8 Romanticism, Transcendentalism, Environmentalism: The Ecological Poetics of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller 151
- 9 Mind, Body, and Consciousness: The Poetry of Edgar Allan Poe and Emily Dickinson 173
- 10 Poetry at War: Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, and Stephen Crane 195
- 11 Modern(ist) American Poetry 215
- 12 Modernist Materialities: Objects in Poetry 237
- 13 Poet-Anthropologists and Boasian “Culture”: Edward Sapir, Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead 259
- 14 The Poet-Critics, Regionalism, and the Rise of Formalism 279
- 15 Unconventionally Conventional: Elizabeth Bishop and the Modernization of Traditional Forms 301
- 16 Poetic Modes of Early Postmodernism: Black Mountain School, Beat Movement, New York School 317
- 17 Poetry as Confession? The Cases of Anne Sexton, W. D. Snodgrass, and Sylvia Plath 343
- 18 African American Poetry: From the Harlem Renaissance to the Black Arts Movement and Beyond 359
- 19 Poetry as Feminist Critique 375
- 20 Words in Performance: The Art and Poetics of Language Poetry 395
- 21 How Poetry Matters Now 417
- Name Index 437
- Subject Index 451
- List of Contributors 463
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Editors’ Preface V
- Contents VII
- Introduction XI
-
Part I: How Poetry Makes Things Happen
- 1 Framing Modern Subjectivity: Poetry and Experience 1
- 2 Poetry, Politics, and the Politics of Poetry: How Poems Interfere 29
- 3 Tuning in on Sister Arts: Poetry and Music 53
- 4 Poetry and Modes of Humor 73
-
Part II: American Poetry and Poetics Up Close: From the Puritans to Postmodernity and Beyond
- 5 Poetry and the Puritan Ethic: Anne Bradstreet, Samuel Danforth, Edward Taylor 97
- 6 Neoclassicism and Nation-Building: The Poetry of Phillis Wheatley and Philip Freneau 113
- 7 The Price of Poetry: Horton, Larcom, Longfellow, Lowell, Holmes 131
- 8 Romanticism, Transcendentalism, Environmentalism: The Ecological Poetics of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller 151
- 9 Mind, Body, and Consciousness: The Poetry of Edgar Allan Poe and Emily Dickinson 173
- 10 Poetry at War: Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, and Stephen Crane 195
- 11 Modern(ist) American Poetry 215
- 12 Modernist Materialities: Objects in Poetry 237
- 13 Poet-Anthropologists and Boasian “Culture”: Edward Sapir, Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead 259
- 14 The Poet-Critics, Regionalism, and the Rise of Formalism 279
- 15 Unconventionally Conventional: Elizabeth Bishop and the Modernization of Traditional Forms 301
- 16 Poetic Modes of Early Postmodernism: Black Mountain School, Beat Movement, New York School 317
- 17 Poetry as Confession? The Cases of Anne Sexton, W. D. Snodgrass, and Sylvia Plath 343
- 18 African American Poetry: From the Harlem Renaissance to the Black Arts Movement and Beyond 359
- 19 Poetry as Feminist Critique 375
- 20 Words in Performance: The Art and Poetics of Language Poetry 395
- 21 How Poetry Matters Now 417
- Name Index 437
- Subject Index 451
- List of Contributors 463
