Submission Date
4-15-2018
Document Type
Paper
Department
English
Adviser
Meredith Goldsmith
Committee Member
Abigail Kluchin
Committee Member
Rebecca Jaroff
Committee Member
Meredith Goldsmith
Department Chair
Rebecca Jaroff
Project Description
The Bird that Flew Backwards examines women poets from literary Modernism in the 1910s and Beat culture in the 1950s. Analyzing these eras in tandem reveals contrasting historical constructions of American womanhood and how sociocultural trends influenced how the “poetess” constructed herself and her work and illustrates the retrograde nature of women’s rights in the 1950s. Through close reading, digital mapping, and historical background, The Bird that Flew Backwards establishes a new critical perspective by linking the more well-known Modernists with lesser-known women in 1910s Greenwich Village Bohemia. This linkage between eras branches off to explore themes of formation of identity, queerness, and women’s sexual/spatial agency.
Recommended Citation
Gow, Robin, "The Bird That Flew Backwards" (2018). English Honors Papers. 7.
https://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/english_hon/7
Included in
American Studies Commons, Digital Humanities Commons, English Language and Literature Commons, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies Commons, Other Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons
Comments
Follow the link below to mapped lives of Mina Loy and Diane di Prima as part of Chapter 3.
Mapping was done on StoryMaps by KnightLab.
https://uploads.knightlab.com/storymapjs/35c507c5623047db8142fc9ecb8f331d/abedroomofonesown/index.html