Wednesday, June 8, 2011

How does Emily Dickinson use feminism in literature in her poems?

Emily Dickinson has many personas in her poetry.  Cynthia
Griffin Wolff, in "The Many Voices in Dickinson's Poetry"
says:



One poem
may be delivered in a child's Voice; another in the Voice of a young woman scrutinizing
nature and the society in which she makes her place.  Sometimes the Voice is that of a
woman self-confidently addressing her lover in a language of passion and sexual desire.
 At still other times, the Voice of the verse seems so precariously balanced at the edge
of hysteria that even its calmest observations grate like the shriek of
dementia.



She goes on to to
say:



No
manageable set of discrete categories suffices to capture the diversity of discourse,
and any attempt to simplify Dickinson's methods does violence to the
verse.



So, just as Dickinson
wrestles with complex notions of God, giving no consistent view of religion, so too does
she wrestle with gender, giving no consistent feminist
views.


Her work is paradoxical: it looks like the terse
verse of a male.  Women, I guess, we supposed to be chatty social butterflies back then.
 With all the dashes and ellipses and telegraphic lines, her poetry seems a far cry from
anything from this planet, let alone gender.  All in all, her great theme in her poetry
was that of mystery, and I think she would like it best if her socio-political views
remained as such.

No comments:

Post a Comment

How far is Iago justified in hating Othello?

Iago hates Othello for some of reasons. First reason could be that Othello promoted Cassio in his place; however, Iago wants it and he cosid...