Emily Dickinson and the Female Consciousness
I am researching when Emily Dickinson’s work does what Audre Lorde said poetry could be; a remembering what being a woman is, a reimagining what it could be now, and a way to place and know ourselves. This is not to oversimplify the female experience, or to make some claim about what all women have incommon, instead it is a listening, because when we dive into poetry, in this case Emily Dickinson’s poetry, and processing art there is the opportunity to simultaneously examine our own lives. And because I believe it’s right to honor and give time to beautiful gifts given to this world and Emily Dickinson’s poems are gifts.
“Poetry is Not a Luxury” is an essay by Audre Lorde about the relationship between women and poetry, more specifically the necessity of poetry for women. Her argument is that poetry is not a luxury it is a necessity, it is necessary as a mode for women to get in touch with the truth of their history, of what it means to be woman, and a way for them to reimagine or remember that truth. It is a very famous piece which is part of why I will be referencing it. I think it’s important to be informed about the material that shapes the way you, your reader, and history are understanding a certain topic. And Although I’m not sure enough yet to call it a necessity I agree with Lorde about poetry being a space for women to name themselves, learn themselves, and share that.
Audre, Lorde. Poetry Is Not a Luxury. 1985, https://makinglearning.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/poetry-is-not-a-luxury-audre-lorde.pdf.
Hoffman, Nancy, et al. “Reading Women’s Poetry: The Meaning and Our Lives.” National Council of Teachers of English, vol. 34, no. 1, Oct. 1972, pp. 48–62, https://www.jstor.org/stable/375218.
This journal is an academic article written by Suzanna Juhasz, Professor of English and Women’s Studies, that looks into a poem by Emily Dickinson to decipher how women “Live Doubly”. The poem describes Emily Dickinson discontent with the “small” life she’s been handed, her feeling that she could hold so much more, and the way this situation of female expectations and limitations combined with her big aspirations is crushing. Juhasz argues that this creates what she calls “Doubleness”; a kind of two worlds, she believes this “doubleness” is the “ontological situation of women in patriarchal culture.” I will be working mostly with Emily Dickinsons poem “Perhaps I Asked too Large” and using this journal as a reference for some of the ways other scholars interpret her work. I’m not sure how I feel about the argument of doubleness yet, but I do agree that there is something very feminine in the contradictions of her poem, and that it reveals something about the female situation, at least white American female situation.
Juhasz Suzanna. “Writing Doubly: Emily Dickinson and Female Experience.” Legacy, vol. 3, no. 1, 1986, pp. 5–15, https://www.jstor.org/stable/25678951.
Yao, Kunming. Feminine Voices in Emily Dickinson’s Poetry. https://download.atlantis-press.com/article/25891651.pdf.
I think that your idea of discussing doubleness (as explained by Emily Dickinson’s poem) would tie in well with the source that we had analyzed by Lorde. Do you think that perhaps using Lorde’s essay as an example to explain that poetry could be used as a mode for women to escape feelings of doubleness would work well to develop your essay?