Lesbianism As Strategy For Liberation I
Lesbianism as Strategy for Liberation in Adrienne Rich 's Poetry
Introduction: Identity Crisis and Lesbianism Rich views hitherto existing norms and values of the society are male made. So, she articulates poetic statement for the feministic movement in the United States against the world of art that is built in the language of patriarchy, she through her art and criticism, offers a probing examination of women 's roles and their relation with males, of motherhood and of what means to be a woman and the most of all, the experiences of woman and the gender structures in the society in general. Rich as elsewhere written or spoken is about female related in her poetry and prose. Her writings give us a sense of women experience. Females, in the world of heterosexual institution have been viewed as demure, submissive, erotic, belle, ignorant, passionate and with many more such adjectives. But such charges are made by male chauvinistic intelligentsia due to females ' own passivity. Adrienne Rich (1929), an American poet of the post-world era, explores feminism and lesbianism criticizing patriarchal society and institution. She even does not let free in criticizing female passivity in this regard. Hence by criticizing female passivity and male relentless domination over females, she focuses on the immediacy or urgency of female attachment.
Such attachment doesn’t mean physical or sexual relationship but something else
i.e. emotional attachment. She is clear in view that the problem of female can be felt and tackled by only females unity as male can never feel and understand what in fact is being a female and the real experiences. Historically men and women have played very different parts, in each others lives, where women has been a luxury for men and has served as the painter’s model and the poet’s muse but also as comforter, nurse, cook, bearer of his seed, secretarial assistant and copyist of manuscripts. Men has played a quite different role and got the full
Introduction: Identity Crisis and Lesbianism Rich views hitherto existing norms and values of the society are male made. So, she articulates poetic statement for the feministic movement in the United States against the world of art that is built in the language of patriarchy, she through her art and criticism, offers a probing examination of women 's roles and their relation with males, of motherhood and of what means to be a woman and the most of all, the experiences of woman and the gender structures in the society in general. Rich as elsewhere written or spoken is about female related in her poetry and prose. Her writings give us a sense of women experience. Females, in the world of heterosexual institution have been viewed as demure, submissive, erotic, belle, ignorant, passionate and with many more such adjectives. But such charges are made by male chauvinistic intelligentsia due to females ' own passivity. Adrienne Rich (1929), an American poet of the post-world era, explores feminism and lesbianism criticizing patriarchal society and institution. She even does not let free in criticizing female passivity in this regard. Hence by criticizing female passivity and male relentless domination over females, she focuses on the immediacy or urgency of female attachment.
Such attachment doesn’t mean physical or sexual relationship but something else
i.e. emotional attachment. She is clear in view that the problem of female can be felt and tackled by only females unity as male can never feel and understand what in fact is being a female and the real experiences. Historically men and women have played very different parts, in each others lives, where women has been a luxury for men and has served as the painter’s model and the poet’s muse but also as comforter, nurse, cook, bearer of his seed, secretarial assistant and copyist of manuscripts. Men has played a quite different role and got the full
Cited: Auden, W.H. “Foreword to A change of World.” Adrienne Rich 's Petry. ED. Barbara C. Gelpy and Albert Gelpi. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1975. 277-279. Gelpi, Barbara C. and Albert Gelpi,eds. Adrienne Rich 's Poetry and Pross: Poems, Prose, Reviews and Criticism. New York: W.W. Norton and Company,1993. Rich, Adrienne. Blood ,Bread and Poetry: Selected Prose 1979-1985. New York: Norton.1989. Vendler, Helen.“Ghostlier Demarcations,Keener Sounds in Parnassu.”. In Poetry Criticism. ED. Robyn V.Young Vol.5. Detroit: Gale, 1992.358-368.