If this is fanciful, Alison, then your fancies seem wise and
well-grounded! This makes sense. And so much of the imaginative
success of a poem, seems to me, happens through how freshly and
energetically the poem chooses to deal with that history. This is
Harold Bloom, in a way, but Bloom only sees one basic model, that of
Oedipal struggle. There are so many other ways for a poem to address
its history--this is, I think, one of the most intriguing avenues for
feminist readings of poems.
I wonder if a history that seems quite thoroughly erased to a poem's
contemporaries may become more visible as readers become further
removed from the poem's historical context?
Annie
- I guess I can't think of a poem, however
> naïve its provenance, as _not_ being embedded in a history, though that
> history may well be one that has been erased. Or am I being fanciful
> again?
> It's quite early here...
>
> Best
>
> A
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