The Lesbian Muse and Poetic Identity, 1889–1930
Author: Sarah Parker
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2015-10-06
Total Pages: 232
ISBN-13: 1317319990
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Throughout history the poetic muse has tended to be (a passive) female and the poet male. This dynamic caused problems for late Victorian and twentieth-century women poets; how could the muse be reclaimed and moved on from the passive role of old? Parker looks at fin-de-siècle and modernist lyric poets to investigate how they overcame these challenges and identifies three key strategies: the reconfiguring of the muse as a contemporary instead of a historical/mythological figure; the muse as a male figure; and an interchangeable poet/muse relationship, granting agency to both.