Abstract

My dissertation examines the sonic dimensions of Anne Sexton's lyric poetry. Sexton's poetry and live performances can be read as amplifying the acoustic qualities of the lyric, using sound to refashion femininity. Using recordings of Sexton's readings, plays and performances, I analyze how sound functions to contest and rearticulate notions of femininity, poetry, and performance. ;My project expands the theoretical context in which Sexton's work can be understood, while investigating new ways of understanding larger issues of femininity, sound, and writing. Examining five key poems, "Ringing the Bells", "Her Kind", "Music Swims Back to Me", "Old", and "Flee On Your Donkey", as well as her play, Mercy Street, and performance ensemble, Anne Sexton and Her Kind, I analyze how sound may be used to refigure the relationship between the written and the performed. Central to this investigation is a close study of the use of oratory in Sexton's work. ;I examine how oratory--the recitation by the poet of her already-written lyric poems--creates the poetics not only of her live theatrical performances and poetry readings, but also of her written poems. "Oratorical performance" is therefore as much a critical methodology for rereading the relationship between performance, writing, recitation, and femininity as it is a particular genre. ;My study develops an interdisciplinary, performance studies approach to studying the problems of gender and the acoustic in lyric poetry. This expanded critical context may allow for a new understanding of the lyric's potential to refashion the terms of femininity and subjectivity