Abandoned Women and Poetic Tradition, Volume 10At the heart of poetic tradition is a figure of abandonment, a woman forsaken and out of control. She appears in writings ancient and modern, in the East and the West, in high art and popular culture produced by women and by men. What accounts for her perennial fascination? What is her function—in poems and for writers? Lawrence Lipking suggests many possibilities. In this figure he finds a partial record of women's experience, an instrument for the expression of religious love and yearning, a voice for psychological fears, and, finally, a model for the poet. Abandoned women inspire new ways of reading poems and poetic tradition. |
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Page xvi
... relation to larger works . The epic hero , for instance , tends to define himself by leaving a woman behind . I wondered why ; I accumulated examples . Eventually such poetry became an obsession of mine . This book records that ...
... relation to larger works . The epic hero , for instance , tends to define himself by leaving a woman behind . I wondered why ; I accumulated examples . Eventually such poetry became an obsession of mine . This book records that ...
Page xv
Lawrence Lipking. This is a book about poetry and abandoned women . The relations between them seem almost as old as poetry itself . Indeed , in some cul- tures the role of women in literature has been virtually identified with ...
Lawrence Lipking. This is a book about poetry and abandoned women . The relations between them seem almost as old as poetry itself . Indeed , in some cul- tures the role of women in literature has been virtually identified with ...
Page xvi
... relation to larger works . The epic hero , for instance , tends to define himself by leaving a woman behind . I wondered why ; I accumulated examples . Eventually such poetry became an obsession of mine . This book records that obses ...
... relation to larger works . The epic hero , for instance , tends to define himself by leaving a woman behind . I wondered why ; I accumulated examples . Eventually such poetry became an obsession of mine . This book records that obses ...
Page xx
... relation to gender . Each of these may be plau- sible , in some contexts , but none of them accounts for all the truth . To argue for only one would require bending the evidence . The view that severs female from male traditions , for ...
... relation to gender . Each of these may be plau- sible , in some contexts , but none of them accounts for all the truth . To argue for only one would require bending the evidence . The view that severs female from male traditions , for ...
Page xxvi
... relation between the two is the heart of the figure . Like definitions of gender , such relations alter from time to time ; they cannot be taken for granted . Hence this book does not attempt to resolve the inherent tension between the ...
... relation between the two is the heart of the figure . Like definitions of gender , such relations alter from time to time ; they cannot be taken for granted . Hence this book does not attempt to resolve the inherent tension between the ...
Contents
Ariadne at the Wedding Abandoned Women and Poetic Tradition | xxvii |
Lord Byrons Secret The School of Abandonment | 30 |
Sappho Descending Abandonment through the Ages | 55 |
Sappho Descending Abandonment to the Present | 95 |
The Rape of the Sibyl Male Poets and Abandoned Women | 125 |
Could I be like her? The Example of Women Alone | 168 |
Aristotles Sister A Poetics of Abandonment | 207 |
Notes and Glosses | 227 |
Index | 287 |
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Common terms and phrases
aban abandoned women Ariadne Arimneste beauty Byron Catullus Catullus 51 classic critics death divine Don Juan Donna Julia Eloisa to Abelard Emily Dickinson emotions Enheduanna epistle Eugene Onegin eyes fear feelings female poets feminine Gaspara Stampa Greek heart Hence hero heroine human Ibid imagine Inanna John Julia's letter lady language Laodamia learned lesbian lines literary literature lives loneliness lover Lowell lyric Madame de Staël male poets Marias Marina Tsvetayeva masculine modern Muse never Onegin Ovid Ovid's pain passion Perhaps Phaon poem poet's Poetess poetry of abandoned Pope Portuguese Letters Protesilaus Pushkin readers Rilke Rilke's Rosalía de Castro sapphic Sappho Second Ode secret seems sense sexual Sibyl sister songs soul speak spirit stanza story suffering Swinburne symptoms Tatiana theme theory tion tradition translation Tsvetayeva University Press verse Vivien voice woman poet woman's poetics words Wordsworth write York