Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Nightingaleas Burden: Women Poets and American Culture Before 1900

The Nightingaleas Burden: Women Poets and American Culture Before 1900

Walker, Cheryl

Hardcover

Literary CriticismPoetry CriticismGeneral World History

ISBN10: 0253340659
ISBN13: 9780253340658
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Published: Jan 22 1983
Pages: 208
Weight: 1.05
Height: 0.63 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English

In this evocative exploration, Cheryl Walker shows that there is a distinct tradition of women's poetry in America--one that the poets themselves have not always been fully aware of--and that individual poems can be read as manifestations of that tradition. Philomela, the nightingale of literary mythology, serves as a model for women poets, representing simultaneously both their particular forms of power and the frustrating powerlessness imposed on them by the cultural norms for women. The author identifies a number of archetypal motifs: the power fantasy, the sanctuary poem, the renunciation poem, the forbidden lover poem, the burden of beauty, and the secret sorrow. Among the poets discussed are Anne Bradstreet, Phillis Wheatley, Lydia Sigourney, Frances Osgood, Julia Ward Howe, Margaret Fuller, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, and Louise Guiney.

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