num_pages: 327
description: At 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.
language: English
title: Abandoned Women and Poetic Tradition
titlecomplete: Abandoned Women and Poetic Tradition (Women in Culture and Society)
genres: Literary Criticism, Poetry
ratings_count: 3
series: Women in Culture and Society
publisher: University of Chicago Press