Date of Award
2001
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
English
First Advisor
James Olney
Abstract
Girls Who Would Be Gods: The Poetry of Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Bishop, and Sylvia Plath charts the development of these three American poets, from concerns with ambition and competition that appear in their early poetry, letters and journals, to their later creation of myths surrounding themselves and the secondary worlds of their creation. With Plath's explicit wish that she might be God, Bishop's Crusoe-like exile that allows her to create imaginary realms and homes, and Dickinson's not entirely tentative proposal that she might well be the Biblical Eve, these poets indulged in imaginative re-creations of their worlds and their selves. What emerges is a portrait of poets actively engaged in a usurpation of divine handiwork; knowingly trading mortal lives for the immortal.
Recommended Citation
Priddy, Anna Lynn, "Girls Who Would Be Gods: The Poetry of Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Bishop, and Sylvia Plath." (2001). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 309.
https://repository.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/309
ISBN
9780493272801
Pages
194
DOI
10.31390/gradschool_disstheses.309