Sapphic Identity in the 20th Century American Poetry: Poetry as Performativity
Project no. 25239 · Status: Kapanmış (Yayın bekleniyor) · 2022
Summary
<p>This project explores Sapphic identity in twentieth-century American lesbian poetry, focusing on its performative role and how it manifests in various poems. It examines the social and historical influences on this identity, highlighting how these influences are reflected in poetry. Sappho, previously underexplored in identity studies, will be analyzed, and examples from American poetry will illustrate this identity. The thesis aims to show how Sappho's concept of identity evolved into a social action in the twentieth century through poetry. The introduction will outline the subject and purpose, while the second part will cover foundational concepts. This includes the performativity theories of Austin, Derrida, and Butler, along with Foucault's theory of sexual identity, followed by discussions on Sapphic identity and lesbianism. The theoretical background will precede analyses of selected poets by race and ethnicity. The third part will focus on the poems of Adrienne Rich, Djuna Barnes, Eileen Myles, Ellen Bass, Elsa Gidlow, Gertrude Stein, Judy Grahn, Rita Mae Brown, and Marilyn Hacker, examining identity and performativity in white American lesbian poets. The fourth part will analyze poets of diverse races and ethnicities, including Angelina Weld Grimké, Audre Lorde, Becky Birtha, Pat Parker, Pauli Murray, Cherríe L. Moraga, Paula Gunn Allen, and Christina Smith. The conclusion will reveal the poets' lesbian identities through their poetry and emphasize the impact of their ethnic backgrounds. This study explains the transformation of identity into social action through poetry's performativity.</p>