The Poetics of the Double-Bind Gender and Creative Agency in Anne Sexton, Adrienne Rich, and Denise Levertov
Date of Award
2005
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelors
Department
Humanities
First Advisor
Lee, Benjamin
Keywords
Petrarchan Revisionism, Women Poets, Lyric Tradition
Area of Concentration
Literature
Abstract
This thesis uses the work of three women poets of the twentieth century to explore problems of gender and creative agency in the Western poetic tradition. I often refer to the paradigm of male/poet/subject in address to a woman/beloved/object, typified by Petrarchan sonnet sequences of the Renaissance, in order to both focus the discussion on specific problems of gender and lyric address and to exemplify the problem of the 'double bind.' This term, coined by Suzanne Juhasz and central to my thesis, is meant to signify the socially-constructed inconsistencies between the positions of poet and woman. I discuss three women poets of the twentieth century -- Anne Sexton, Adrienne Rich, and Denise Levertov -- and explore the ways their personal conception of the double bind informs their poetry. I examine how they transform the lyric address of a poet/subject to a beloved/object into a lyric that is more aware of the problems of representational language and sexism found in Petrarchan sequences. Anne Sexton utilizes the poet's address to a beloved to display her speaker's melancholic attachment to normative gender positioning she otherwise criticizes in her work. Adrienne Rich takes on the tendencies of objectification inherent within Petrarchan address in order to articulate lesbian subjectivity in 'Twenty-One Love Poems.' Denise Levertov demonstrates her interest in the problems of subject/object relations in order to develop a theory of ethical presence.
Recommended Citation
McHugh, Megan, "The Poetics of the Double-Bind Gender and Creative Agency in Anne Sexton, Adrienne Rich, and Denise Levertov" (2005). Theses & ETDs. 3550.
https://digitalcommons.ncf.edu/theses_etds/3550
Rights
This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.