Elusive Feminism: Gender Consciousness in the Poetry of Elizabeth Bishop

• Thesis title in Czech: Nepostižitelný feminismus: genderové uvědomění v poezii Elizabeth Bishop
• Thesis title in English: Elusive Feminism: Gender Consciousness in the Poetry of Elizabeth Bishop
• Key words: Elizabeth Bishop|feminismus|ženská literatura|gender|americká poezie 20. století|genderová identita|lyrická poezie
• English key words: Elizabeth Bishop|feminism|women’s writing|gender|20th-century American poetry|gender identity|lyric poetry
• Academic year of topic announcement: 2018/2019
• Thesis type: diploma thesis
• Thesis language: angličtina
• Department: Department of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures (21-UALK)
• Supervisor: Stephan Delbos, M.F.A., Ph.D.
• Author: hidden - assigned and confirmed by the Study Dept.
• Date of registration: 25.03.2019
• Date of assignment: 25.03.2019
• Administrator's approval: not processed yet
• Confirmed by Study dept. on: 16.05.2019
• Date and time of defence: 22.01.2020 09:00
• Date of electronic submission: 30.12.2019
• Date of proceeded defence: 22.01.2020
• Submitted/finalized: committed by student and finalized
• Opponents: Mgr. Pavla Veselá, Ph.D.

Guidelines

The aim of this thesis is to explore the way Elizabeth Bishop grasps the themes and issues usually understood as feminist. As a female poet, and especially as a lesbian, she could be expected to adopt feminist principles in her poems. However, unlike other female lesbian poets of her time, she defies the potential bias in favour of feminine identity, should it be at the expense of gender-neutral worth of her work. Bishop’s impartiality may be recognized in more aspects than merely the attitude towards sexuality and gender distinction in her poetry. Building on feminist and gender theories, the thesis intends to consider Bishop’s work in comparison to literary works generally accepted as feminist. Avoiding a distinctly feminist strategy adopted for example by Adrianne Rich, Bishop creates a poetic space in which an overt expression of gender struggle gives way to implications. As a result, she manages to embrace intimacy independently on gender hierarchization and to disclose the poetic self through individual layers of complexity, which might otherwise be overshadowed by the feminist agenda. Bishop’s unusually neutral attitude toward issues that usually stand at the centre of feminist writers’ attention will be examined primarily on how she presents the two sexes both in the sense of physical representation and psychological portrayal. Even though Bishop generally refrains from the theme of women and men alike, that does not necessarily imply a lack of study material. On the contrary, her refusal to take a direct stance on gendered identity invites a profound research of Bishop’s intricate egalitarianism. However, in order to acquire a fuller grasp of Bishop’s stance on feminism in her poetry, it is vital to focus also on the form of her poetry and her employment of language. An extensive body of critical literature have been written on the distinction between feminine and masculine way of writing. Feminist criticism often argues that literature has been formed by patriarchal tradition and feminist literature (both poetry and prose) then strives to challenge this tradition by developing a distinctive feminine voice. Especially lyric poetry has been associated with and shaped by male voice and it was only gradually that the male lyric voice started being increasingly problematized and that both within the lyric form and outside of it. Since Bishop represents one of the most original lyric voices of the twentieth century, the thesis aims to examine how she responds to both the masculine tradition and its feminine rethinking, and by extension also to analyse her approach not only to the lyric mode itself, but even to the features generally attributed to it. Yet, it should be understood that the strong evasion of aggressive feminism does not make Bishop an anti-feminist. On the contrary, by avoiding the act of advocating or condemning anybody on the basis of one’s gender, Bishop in her poetry manages to achieve a true gender equality without the necessity to depend on the feminist agenda and to convey her meaning independently on her gender.

References

Armstrong, Isobel. New Feminist Discourses: Critical Essays on Theories and Texts. New York: Routledge, 2012.
Bishop, Elizabeth. Complete Poems. London: Chatto & Windus, 2000.
Bishop, Elizabeth. One Art: Letters. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1994.
Bishop, Elizabeth, Robert Lowell, Thomas J. Travisano. Words in air: the complete correspondence between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell. London: Faber and Faber, 2008.
Cameron, Deborah. The Feminist Critique of Language: A Reader. New York: Routledge, 2003.
Costello, Bonnie. Elizabeth Bishop: Questions of Mastery. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991.
Cucinella, Catherine. Poetics of the Body: Edna St. Vincent Millay, Elizabeth Bishop, Marilyn Chin, and Marilyn Hacker. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
Davidson, Michael. Guys Like Us: Citing Masculinity in Cold War Poetics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004.
Doreski, Carole. Elizabeth Bishop: The Restraints of Language. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Harrison, Victoria. Elizabeth Bishop’s Poetics of Intimacy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
Kalstone, David. Becoming a poet: Elizabeth Bishop, with Marianne Moore and Robert Lowell. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1989.
Kirsch, Adam. The wounded Surgeon: Confession and Transformation in Six American Poets: Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop, John Berryman, Randall Jarrell, Delmore Schwartz, and Sylvia Plath. New York: W. W. Norton, 2005.
Lombardi, Marilyn May. Elizabeth Bishop: The Geography of Gender. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1993.
Rich, Adrienne. Blood, Bread and Poetry. London: Virago Press, 1986.
Travisano, Thomas J. Elizabeth Bishop: Her Artistic Development. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1989.
Von der Heydt, James E. At the Brink of Infinity: Poetic Humility in Boundless American Space. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2008.
Zona, Kirstin Hotelling. Marianne Moore, Elizabeth Bishop, and May Swenson: The Feminist Poetics of Self-restraint. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2005.