루이스 보건(Louise Bogan)의 시학과 「여자들」(＂Women＂)

Abstract

In her poetry, Louise Bogan transcended cultural limitations of gender as she struggled for artistic control and personal maturity. During the twenties and thirties, conflicting images of women grew in response to contradictory discourses of gender. Therefore both thematically and stylistically, her poetry must be understood in terms of her unique experience of gender. This study explores the specific gender ideology of Bogan's time and examines the ways in which she engaged that set of cultural assumptions in her criticism and poetry. It also points out other factors such as class and artistic temperament important to an understanding of her work. Within this context, it presents a feminist reading of Bogan which avoids reducing her to a patriarchal cripple.Bogan's ambivalence about feminine nature informed her views on women's poetry and its marginal position in the literary scene. The voice in “Women” totally internalizes the enemy and turns on her own feminine self. The poem's unrelieved bitterness toward gender epitomizes the worst kind of isolation, extending to encompass both the outward and inward world. Bogan's style is plain, terse, bare to the point of austerity. She depicts with severe economy, with reticence and by implication and her images are objective. As a female poet who reflects human situation truly, she transforms human sufferings into vast resources of poetic energy and miracle of art. Her poetry is a record of her progress as a poet and person.