James Madison University JMU Scholarly Commons MAD-RUSH Undergraduate Research Proceedings of the Eleventh Annual MadRush Conference Conference: Best Papers, Spring 2020 Women's Self-Definition Through Poetry Olivia Samimy Follow this and additional works at: https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/madrush Part of the Literature in English, British Isles Commons, Literature in English, North America Commons, and the Women's Studies Commons Samimy, Olivia, "Women's Self-Definition Through Poetry" (2020). MAD-RUSH Undergraduate Research Conference. 1. https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/madrush/2020/poetry/1 This Event is brought to you for free and open access by the Conference Proceedings at JMU Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in MAD-RUSH Undergraduate Research Conference by an authorized administrator of JMU Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. WOMEN’S SELF- DEFINITION THROUGH POETRY By: Olivia Samimy Samimy 1 I. Introduction and Context The roots of this project have been growing throughout the course of all the literature classes I have taken thus far in college. I have always had a particular interest in female poets and how the barriers to women writing affected the work produced by women who were able to overcome these challenges. In my British Literature class freshman year, I learned about Aphra Behn, a woman writing in the 17th century. She was frequently criticized for being lewd; a critique I did not fully understand at the time, because she was criticized for things that I saw excused in her male contemporaries. The following year, I learned of Anne Bradstreet, a Puritan poet from America.