Poetry by Women in America
Esthetics in Evolution
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8896001 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Karen Alkalay-Gut, Karen Alkalay‐Gut (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1983 |
| Volume | 14 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 239-258 |
| Publication date | 1983-09-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Canadian Review of American Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0007-7720 • E-ISSN: 1710-114X |
| Publisher | University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.3138/cras-014-03-01 |
| OpenAlex | W2085873681 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 5 |
Unborn sisters, look back on us in mercy where we failed ourselves, see us not one-dimensional but with the past as your steadying and corrective lens. —Adrienne Rich, "Turning the Wheel"' In the past sixty years women in America have come to enjoy a general recognition for their poetry that their ancestors could not have imagined. Although women have written poetry throughout history, and a great deal from earlier periods is now being rediscovered, the quantity of published work was small, the audience select or non-existent, and the general attitude negative. Muriel Rukeyser sums up the problem of women poets in courses and anthologies: "One undergraduate said to me There are no women until after Easter.'"2 Historical editions of literature present an extremely low per- centage of women, but contemporary anthologies are becoming better balanced.3 Women are simply writing more today, are writing as women to a universal audience, and are being taken seriously as poets. Yet this deve- lopment has come about gradually, and the form and character of poetry by women in the twentieth century is still in a state of evolution. Although this phenomenon seems to be true of many western countries, the radical development of poetry by women is so pronounced, so extreme and self-aware in the United States, as to constitute a unique experience. Three specific stages may be distinguished: the period beginning with the enfranchisement of women following World War I and concluding with the reintroduction of the "feminine mystique" in American culture following World War II; the period between World War II and the politicization of women's lives through the war protest, the civil rights movements, and other national concerns; and the present period of the psychological, political and social revolution in the form of the feminist movement. The three parts of this essay trace these stages
Aesthetics · Art · Character (mathematics · Literature · Period (music · Phenomenon · Poetry · State (computer science · History · Philosophy · Poetry Analysis and Criticism
| Highly cited | No |
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