Adrienne Rich was a very critically acclaimed and widely read poet of her era. Ms. Rich was a rebellious pioneer in expressing her viewpoints through her poetry in what was considered highly taboo topics of her time, such as, politics, lesbianism, and feminism.
Adrienne Rich was born on May 16, 1929 in Baltimore, Maryland. Her father was renowned pathologist at John Hopkins University, Dr. Arnold Rich, and her mother Helen Elizabeth Rich, was a concert pianist and composer. Adrienne began writing at a very early age, with the encouragement of her father. As a child, she grew up reading works from her fathers extensive library from Tennyson, Keats, Arnold, Blake, Rossetti, Swinburne, Carlyle, and Patter (Booth).
Adrienne attended A. B. Radcliffe College and graduated in 1951. In her final year at Radcliffe, her collection, “A Change of World”, was selected by, W. H. Auden for the Yale Series of Younger Poets award.
In 1953, Adrienne married Alfred Conrad, an economics professor at Harvard, whom she had met while she was an undergraduate student at Harvard. During their marriage, they had three children, David, Paul, and Jacob. In the mid 60’s Adrienne became very involved in Vietnam anti war protests, feminist, and civil right issues. As time went on, Alfred thought she was losing her mind because of her obsession and devotion she had to these causes. This created quite a bit of tension in their marriage. In 1970, she separated from Alfred, which lead to his suicide a few months later.
Rich’s early works were very traditional and structured. Her style mirrored the poets who she read extensively as a child. As Rich progressed in her writings, her styled changed drastically. Rich took on a dialogue, and free verse style. This ...
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In Vicki L. Eaklor’s Queer America, the experiences of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgender people in the years since the 1970s gay liberation movement are described as a time of transformation and growth. The antigay movement, threatened, now more than ever, created numerous challenges and obstacles that are still prevalent today. Many of the important changes made associated with the movement were introduced through queer and queer allied individuals and groups involved in politics. Small victories such as the revision of the anti discrimination statement to include “sexual orientation”, new propositions regarding the Equal Rights Amendment and legalized abortion, were met in turn with growing animosity and resistance from individuals and groups opposed to liberal and
Two artistic parents raised their child to be one of America’s greatest authors. Madeleine L’Engle was born on November 29, 1918, in Manhattan to Madeleine Barnett and Charles Camp. Her full name was Madeleine L’Engle Camp but she was commonly known as Madeleine L’Engle, after her grandmother(Martin). Her father was involved in World War I, but retreated back to the United States, due to damaged lungs caused by mustard gas. Upon his return he wrote short stories, movies, and plays, as Madeleine Barnett was a pianist. While both parents were involved in the artistic side of life, Madeleine L’Engle was an only child but had the company of her nanny, Mrs. O’Connell. While located in New York, she had many opportunities, and she had many people visit her parents, most were very artistic alike her parents. While living around the arts, she wrote her first short story at the age of five. Then went on to win a poetry contest in fifth grade. However, her teacher accused her of plagiarizing, sensing that Madeleine L’Engle was not talented enough, but her mother reinforced her gift by showing everything Madeleine had written at home("Madeleine L'Engle"). L'Engle also recounted that an elementary teacher called her stupid(Martin). Around the age of twelve, Madeleine and her parents relocated to Switzerland, where she attended a boarding school, Chatelard. After a couple years, the Camps returned to the United States to be with Madeleine L'Engle's grandmother who had fallen ill. They lived in Florida but, Madeleine was soon sent to South Carolina to attend Ashley Hall Boarding School. She was barely a year away from graduation when her father died in 1936. Upon graduating, she set her sights on majoring in English at Smith College("Madeleine ...
To understand and add historical to the opinion the public felt towards homosexual women in the 1950s it is imperative to understand the popular view held by much of the public towards lesbians as early as the mid-nineteenth century. In 1843 William Bryant wrote an essay that was published in the Evening Post that described a portion of his trip to Ver...
The poetry of Phillis Wheatley is crafted in such a manner that she is able to create a specific aim for each poem, and achieve that aim by manipulating her position as the speaker. As a slave, she was cautious to cross any lines with her proclamations, but was able to get her point across by humbling her own position. In religious or elegiac matters, however, she seemed to consider herself to be an authority. Two of her poems, the panegyric “To MAECENAS” and the elegy “On the Death of a young Lady of Five Years of Age,” display Wheatley’s general consistency in form, but also her intelligence, versatility, and ability to adapt her position in order to achieve her goals.
Olds expresses extreme boldness throughout her poetry, her directness stems from the lack of censorship found in her poems. In an interview, Olds explained that she worries less about censorship yet and realizes there is a need to edit her first drafts (Olds, “Advice to Young Poets”). When it comes to finalizing a poem, multiple drafts are required. Refining and creating the ideal way to deliver the topic of choice. In Olds case, the lack of worrying shows in her topics, she expresses necessities and fixes the mechanics later on. Many critics even called Olds’ poetry pornographic due to the rawness and unique topics. Olds addresses the concept in an interview, “I have never felt that, but then I heard ‘slick and whole’, it sounded too bold
Leonard, K. D. (2009). African American women poets and the power of the word. The Cambridge Companion to African American Women's Literature, 168-187.
American literature often examines people and motives. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlet Letter, and in Arthur Miller’s dramatic classic, The Crucible, people and motives often depict patterns of Puritans struggling for life during a precarious time.
Suzanne Pharr, "A Match Made in Heaven: Lesbian Leftie Chats with a Promise Keeper," The Progressive (August 1996): 28-29;
Smith, David. ‘Lesbian Novel was danger to Nation.’ Sunday 2 January 2005. The Guardian. Web. 20 Nov 2012. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/jan/02/books.gayrights
It is a way to crucially engage oneself in setting the stage for new interventions and connections. She also emphasized that she personally viewed poetry as the embodiment of one’s personal experiences, and she challenged what the white, European males have imbued in society, as she declared, “I speak here of poetry as the revelation or distillation of experience, not the sterile word play that, too often, the white fathers distorted the word poetry to mean — in order to cover their desperate wish for imagination without insight.”
Heather Love starts her essay, “That there is perhaps no term that carries more value in the humanities than ‘rich’. In literary studies, especially, richness is an undisputed - if largely uninterrogated good…” (371). She uses the word rich and richness multiple times since it is connected with interpreting and deep reading, but the critic loses richness, when he practices surface reading.
Asimov married Gertrude Blugerman on July 26th, 1942. They met on a blind date on Valentine's Day. In 1955 their first son was born they named him David. Four years later their daughter Robyn Joan was born. Asimov met another woman Janet Jepson at a mystery writers banquet. The two of them were immediately attracted to one another. In 1970 when Gertrude and Asimov separated he moved in with Janet. His divorce to Gertrude was officialized on November 16th, 1973. On November 30th, 1973 an official of the Ethical Culture Society married Asimov and Janet in her home. They did not have any
The writer was born in January 25, 1882 in London. Adeline Virginia Stephen was one of the many children in the English household of Leslie Stephen and Julia Stephen. Among her were seven other siblings, three full siblings and four half siblings. Both parents had been married and widowed before marrying each other. All eight children lived under one roof with parents and servants at 22 Hyde Park Gate, Kensington.
Before the analysis of taboo as explained in the previous section, it is of very vital importance for us to recall that there is a very solid relationship between taboo and a culture. Ralph Linton (1945) stated that culture completes the life of a society, most probably because it contains almost everything. Kroeber and Kluckhone (1952) further explained this statement, defining culture as a very complicated whole that include the fundamental parts of life such as knowledge, belief, art, moral, customs and any other habits shared within a particular society. Therefore, it is very fundamental for us to know that taboo itself is contributing as a part of culture.
...cted to be stay-at-home moms. Rich portrays her female character as the traditional stay-at-home mom character that is expected to do household chores and raise her family. Although both authors were taking a feminist approach they took two different paths at representing it. Because of these two approaches, the authors showed different problems in society. The approach of having a traditional woman was more successful for Rich because it was more common for someone to suffer from this at this time. Olson's story was strong but was viewed as uncommon because it was very rare that women were left alone with their children. Rich took a better approach by showing how the women that followed "tradition" were still suffering from the cruelness of society. Rich's poem better criticized society by showing that no women was treated properly no matter what role they followed.