A Study of Female Experience in Modern American Poetry Jeannine Dobbs
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University of New Hampshire University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository Doctoral Dissertations Student Scholarship Spring 1973 NOT ANOTHER POETESS: A STUDY OF FEMALE EXPERIENCE IN MODERN AMERICAN POETRY JEANNINE DOBBS Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.unh.edu/dissertation Recommended Citation DOBBS, JEANNINE, "NOT ANOTHER POETESS: A STUDY OF FEMALE EXPERIENCE IN MODERN AMERICAN POETRY" (1973). Doctoral Dissertations. 1016. https://scholars.unh.edu/dissertation/1016 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Scholarship at University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INFORMATION TO USERS This material was produced from a microfilm copy of the original document. 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Xerox University Microfilms 300 N orth Z eeb Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 73- 25,776 DOBBS, Jeannine, 1935- NOT ANOTHER POETESS: A STUDY OF FEMALE EXPERIENCE IN MODERN AMERICAN POETRY. University of New Hampshire, Ph.D., 1973 Language and Literature, general | University Microfilms, A XEROX Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan j-i. © 1973 JBAMNXlfB DOBBS ALL RIGHTS RESERVED THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY. AS RECEIVED. NOT ANOTHER POETESS: A STUDY OF FEMAIE EXPERIENCE IN ISDDERN AMERICAN POETRY By JEANNINE DOBBS Ph.D., University of New Hampshire, 1973 A THESIS Submitted to the University of New Hampshire In Partial Fulfillment of The Requirements for the Degree of I Doctor of Philosophy Graduate School Department of English May, 1973 V This thesis has been examined and approved. Thesis director, Thomas A. Carnicelli, Asso. Prof. of English Thomas Williams, Prof. of English IL4 t u t - i d , ' Jbcuio i f ____ Susan Schibanoff,libanoff, hsdivAss(it/ Prof. of English Robert M. Mennel, Asst. Prof. of History //U jL. "T x . Rose T. Antosiewicz, Asst. Prof. of Italian K 2 . I ■? 0 3 Date ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank my Dissertation Committee, especially my Director, Professor Thomas A. Carnicelli, for helpful suggestions; Margaret Prescott and other members of the University Library Staff who cheerfully and efficiently located many far-flung materials vital to my reading and research; and the University for the tuition scholarship for the year in which much of the actual writing of the dissertation was done. I also wish to acknowledge my debt to Professor Donald Murray for calling my attention to pertinent articles and interviews and for making them available to me at his own expense. And finally, I wish to thank my friends, especially my husband, for encouragement and faith. -iii- TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT v I. WOMEN AS WRITERS: THE CRITICAL CLIMATE 1 II. DOMESTICITY IN ENGLISH POETRY: PRE-TWENTIETH CENTURY 20 III. THE TWENTIETH CENTURY: PRE-MILLAY 40 IV. MILLAY: A REASSESSMENT 59 V. DOMESTIC EXPERIENCE IN RECENT AMERICAN POETRY: AS SUBJECT AND METAPHOR 80 1. Husbands and Lovers 81 2. Fertility 88 3. Motherhood 93 4. Parents 97 5. Womanhood 104 6. Non-Domestic Subjects 111 > 7. Extended Metaphors 115 VI. MS. PLATH/MRS. HUGHES 120 VII. CONTEMPORARIES 156 1. Orendolyn Brooks 156 2. Denise Levertov 164 3. Anne Sexton 175 4. Erica Jong 185 5.. Lyn Lifshin 191 6. Marge Piercy 196 . BIBLIOGRAPHY ' 204 APPEIOIX 221 -iv- ABSTRACT NOT ANOTHER POETESS: A STUDY OF FEMALE EXPERIENCE IN MODERN AMERICAN POETRY by JEANNINE DOBBS This study concerns poetry written out of uniquely female experience, primarily as it is written by modern American women. In this study, "female experience" includes familial, domestic, and sexual experiences common to women. In pursuing this study, I have tried to familiarize myself with the major American women poets, especially those of the twentieth century. There fore, if a woman has a substantial reputation, writes out of her own female experience, and has written poems of representative or \ unusual interest, I have tried to include something of her work. Traditionally, the use of female experience in poetry has not been a critically accepted practice. The bias against this type of poetry and critical bias against women poets in general are discussed in Chapter I. One purpose of this study is to examine women who write out of their own female experience today and possibly to predict where they are going. In order to do this, it is necessary to discover where they have been. Chapter II does this. It shows that through the end of the nineteenth centqry, women who wrote out of their own female experience usually did so unrealistically and sentimentally. A significant change occurred, however, early in the twentieth century, and some of the women who contributed to this breakthrough are examined as a group in Chapter III. The first important American woman poet to write extensively out of her own female experience was Edna St. Vincent Millay. Chapter IV is devoted to her. Hers was one of the first female voices to express a liberated consciousness. Chapter V examines how women since Millay have used their female experiences both as subject and as metaphor. Sylvia Plath is examined in detail in Chapter VI because she is the most influential female poet since Millay. Her hostility towards men, her ambivalent attitude toward the traditional roles expected of women are classic. Plath represents female con sciousness carried to its extreme. Finally, in Chapter VII, the work of six popular, living American women poets is reviewed: Gwendolyn Brooks, Denise Levertov, Anne Sexton, Erica Jong, Lyn Lifshin, and Marge Piercy. Thus, the study presents differing > ways of looking at the subject: historical background, in-depth explication of the works of the two most important female poets of the century to date, classification of different uses of female experience, and reviews of the work of some contemporary figures. This study of general background plus study in-depth of representative individuals has helped me to draw several conclu sions. * One is that we have neglected our inheritance. We have been quick to praise recent poets for originating awareness of women's problems or of breakthroughs in subject matter when poets such as Millay, Brooks, and Genevieve Taggard have been there long before us. Now, too, I see more clearly the dangers in women -vi- writing out of their own female experience. Trivia may remain trivial. And many familial subjects are almost inherently sentimental— children, for example. Also, there is a trend today, perhaps in reaction against sentimentality, to be extremely militant. A hostile tone is becoming commonplace, and it may become boring. And when women, or men for that matter, write about their sexuality, there is the problem of making pornography rather than art. But I am also more aware of women's strengths. I believe that for many women poets, character portraits of other women or of women representative of womanhood in general sure often outstanding. And that when women use their female experience as analogies for other experiences or as metaphors to explore, on a more subtle level, other subjects, they frequently create superior poems. -vii- CHAPTER I WOMEN AS WRITERS: THE CRITICAL CLIMATE Them lady poets must not marry, pal. Miss Dickinson--fancy in Amherst bedding her. Fancy a lark with Sappho, a tumble in the bushes with Miss Moore, a spoon with Emily, while Charlotte glare. Miss Bishop's too noble-^O. (from "Four Dream Songs" by John Berryman) A cardinal rule for the beginning writer: write about what you know. It is a good rule, as rules go, except, as women writers know, it often does not apply to them. Historically, limitations— social, educational, political, and physical— have fairly well restricted women's areas of knowledge to their bodies and their domestic roles. They know about menstruation and menopause, about childbearing and childrearing, about being mistresses and wives and cooks and decorators. Not good enough, male writers, male critics, isale readers, and even other women have said to them.