아버지의 몸―섀런 올즈의 선정성의 저쪽

Abstract

This study is an attempt to examine what Sharon Olds does with herprovocative language and how she goes beyond sensationalism, while herpopularity is sometimes suspected to come mainly from her sensual voice. Olds’s sensationalism is triggered by the use of foul language, such as cockand cunt, with which she even denotes her own parents as in “Satan Says.” Itis again enriched by the way she persistently provides details about what weare not likely to make public, such as her elaborate account of her father’ssalivation on his deathbed in “The Glass” or her first experience of usingcontraceptive device in “Diaphragm Aria.” It is also intensified when shedeliberately and candidly deals with embarrassing female experiences, such asmenstruation in “The Moment” or abortion in “Miscarriage.” However, amongother things, Olds’s sensationalism is mostly stirred up in her presentation ofbodily love with vivid images as in “Sex without Love” or “Ecstasy.” Olds is enthusiastic in the depiction of what might be realized in humanbodies such as the moments during sexual intercourse, pregnancy, birth, anddeath. As a domestic poet, she covers all the bodies of her family, amongwhich her father’s becomes a good example to prove how much hersensational language can be contributable to a new notion of a mortal in all ofits potentialities and limits. Her father’s body speaks to her polyphonically inOlds’s poems as patriarchic, masculine, and material.