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Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quaiity 6” x 9” black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. Bell & Howell Information and Laaming 300 North Zaeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA 800-521-0600 UMI’ TRANSATLANTIC DIALOGUES: POETRY OF ELIZABETH BISHOP AND WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Malgorzata J. Gabrys, M.A. ***** The Ohio State University 2000 Dissertation Committee: Approved By: Professor Jcredith Herrin, Adviser Professor Jim Phelan Adviser Professor Jessica Prinz Èbgfish Graduate Program UMI Number 9982562 UMI* UMI Micrororm9982562 Copyright 2000 by Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Bell & Howell Information and beaming Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor. Ml 48106-1346 Copyright by Malgorzata Gabrys 2000 ABSTRACT Examining the poetic oeuvres of Elizabeth Bishop (1911*1979) and her Polish contemporary, the 1996 Nobel prize winner, Wislawa Szymborska (1923-), in the context of their respective cultures, this dissertation reveals various correspondences between Bishop's and Szymborska*s writing, undermining the traditionally assumed binarism between the Western democracies and the Eastern dictatorships and so between Western and Eastern cultures. Critics such as Edward Hirsch or Stanislaw Baranczak have already made a connection between the two poets without, however, offering any scholarly accounts of Bishop's and Szymborska s affinities. My dissertation investigates and interrogates this intellectual terrain. Since the poets did not know each other's writings and direct influence was not possible, I have adopted the method of cultural criticism, reading their poems in multiple contexts: literary, historical, and feminist, as well as in the contexts of the visual arts and political discourse. My dissertation fulfills several purposes: it accounts for the close correspondence between Bishop's and Szymborska*s writing, examines major overlaps between Polish and American cultures, and shows how different cultural, historical, and political forces can manifest themselves in texts through similar poetical and rhetorical strategies. ii My research, then, contributes to the contemporary field of cultural scholarship; it constitutes a unique analysis of Bishop's work in contexts other than English and American literature; and it will contribute to familiarizing the American readership with the wryly philosophical poetry of Szymborska. iii In memory of my parents Danuta & Wieslaw Gabrys IV ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost I would like to express my gratitude to my adviser, Jeredith Merrin for her invaluable assistance, encouragement, and patience at all stages of this project. I wish to thank the other members of my committee, Jim Phelan and Jessica Prinz who were always ready to read my work and discuss diverse problems 1 explored in my dissertation. I am also much indebted to those who were not on my committee but who read portions of my dissertation and offered valuable suggestions: Dick Davis, Tom Gardner, Anne Knee, Karen Kovacik, Ester Richey, Steve Weninger, and Steve Yao. In addition, I wish to thank David Citino and Barbara Rigney for their constant encouragement of my work. I wish to thank Stanislaw Baranczak for sending me the manuscript of his and Clare Cavanagh's translations of Wislawa Szymborska s poems. My deepest thanks to Tammy Birk and Ken Petri for their unfailing support and valuable advice during my work on this project. My special thanks to Jin Bracken for his invaluable assistance in getting hold of critical and other materials I needed for my research. I am grateful to many others for the help that made my research possible, in particular to Basia Bakowska, Joasia Banach, Basia and Jacek Bohr, Witek Gabrys, Alicja Gorecka, tfiktor and Haryla Kuncewicz, Ludmila Nanke, Joanna Rakowska, Waleria Rakowska, Cristina Rotaru, Jola Uylezinska. Finally, I greatly appreciate the love, patience, and understanding of my sons Maciek and Mateusz Rakowski. Without their support, I would never finish my dissertation. VI VITA April 26, 1956..................... B o m - Gliwice, Poland 1982 M.A. English, Warsaw University 1989.................... M.A. English, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: English vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract......................................... ii Dedication....................................... iv Acknowledgments................................... v Vita............................................ vii Chapters. Introduction: Transatlantic Dialogues................. 1 1. Poetry: The Risk of Questioning.................... 7 2. Between the Boudoir and the Waiting Room............ 61 3. Poetics of Unscripted History..................... 149 4. Poetry and Politics.............................. 209 Conclusion........................................ 275 Works Cited....................................... 263 viii INTRODUCTION: TRANSATLANTIC DIALOGUES The growing scholarship on the poetry of Elizabeth Bishop (1911- 1979) in the United States as well as equally growing Polish criticism on the poetry of Wislawa Szymborska (1923-), the 1996 Nobel prize winner, examines these poets' oeuvres primarily in the context of their respective cultures. At the same time, critical comments on Szymborska's poetry often associate her work with Elizabeth Bishop's. Seamus Heaney writes that "Szymborska reminded [him] a bit of Elizabeth Bishop, since her poems (even in translation) can seem like a cleansing system for language and consciousness" (17). Edward Hirsch observes, "Szymborska is roughly comparable to, say, Elizabeth Bishop— a writer for whom reticence seems to come naturally, whose modesty belies her literary ambitions, and who has quietly blossomed into a major twentieth-century poet" (102). Moreover, one of Szymborska's translators, Stanislaw Baranczak, has referred to Bishop in his article "The Szymborska Phenomenon." Although Baranczak mentions only the poets' "slim collections" of poetry (255), I suggest that he has made the connection between the two women not only because of the similar volume but also because of the similar character of their work. Since Bishop and Szymborska neither met nor read each other's poems, their strong resemblances are puzzling. My dissertation investigates and interrogates this intellectual terrain. If we accepted Helen Vendler's claim of Szymborska's "universality," the affinities between Bishop's and Szymborska'8 art could be easily explained in terms of the culture- transcending, universal appeal of are poetica. However, reading the two women's poems in the multiple contexts of literary, historical, feminist, political, and visual arts discourse, I expose the distorting and reductive nature of the universalist paradigm. At the same time, revealing a number of correspondences between Bishop's and Szymborska*s literary output, I undermine the traditional binary between the West and the East. My first chapter, "Poetry the Risk of Questioning." examines poems by both writers concerned with the representation of poetry and the poet in the context of some major American and Polish presuppositions about the nature of poetry in the twentieth century. Bishop and Szymborska consistently refused to align themselves with any literary group or school, but their works were of course not created in a vacuum. Thus although, as David Kalstone has observed. Bishop "has always been hard to 'place'"(13), a number of American critics have often discussed the traces of poetical influences in her work. Bonnie Costello reads Bishop's poems in the context of the "devotional, romantic, and modem [traditions] out of which Bishop wrote" (2); Jeredith Herrin explores the ways Bishop as a woman poet "made use of the Anglo-American literary tradition" adopting and revising a tradition which was predominantly male (1); similarly reflecting on the significance of gender in American culture, Joanne Feit Diehl reveals 2 how Bishop's "work derives from that early manifestation of American self-consciousness known as transcendentalism" (91). A number of other American scholars have also revealed Bishop's use of the renaissance