Mobley, Agnieszka - red. nauk. ; Fondo, Blossom N. - red. nauk. ; Filipczak, Iwona - red. nauk.
The paper discusses the representation and understanding of liminal spaces and identities in the poems "Santarem", "Questions of Travel", "North Haven", and "Crusoe in England" by Elizabeth Bishop (1911?1979), focusing predominantly on her strategies of creating poetic landscapes that are not only geographical but more importantly, psychological, and spiritual. ; In her poetry Bishop reflects her own life-long liminal negotiations between an outsider (or a tourist), and a local. Many of her poems are set on the island, at the confluence of two rivers, or the coastline, highlighting the liminal aspect of both the landscape and her speakers. Yet the permanent fluidity, which forms the essence of the portrayed landscape is not portrayed or perceived as dangerous or harmful, but rather, as a source of a potential psychological transformation and creativity. ; Bishop`s depiction of landscape is geographically and ethnographically accurate, yet at the same time, she highlights the necessarily cultural interpretations projected onto the place. The featured places as well as their observers are therefore forced to continually re-invent themselves. The analyzed poems feature a tourist or an outsider who is on a journey, or rather a quest that turns out liberating, as the speaker is freed from his/her everyday life and social structures. ; By observing and interacting with nature, the protagonist fulfils the Emersonian ideal of establishing original connection to nature, and often shed their preestablished notions, prejudice, or stereotypes, to adopt a new and fresh insight and relationship to the world. Only by casting aside previous patterns of thought and habit, or the grand narratives (be it religion, culture, or science), can the irreducible complexity of reality and its constant fluidity be accepted and utilized. ; Travel is therefore portrayed as an essential human experience that enables the speakers to be in a distanced position of an outsider. Bishop uses liminal landscapes to question the necessity and constraints of human interpretation of the world based on science, reason, or classification, and to foreground the natural state of change and fluidity. The speakers who fail to recognize and accept the necessity of development and change, often rely on scientific classification or try to impose a cultural order on the landscapes, yet Bishop sees such patterns of behavior as fruitless and self-damaging, as she demonstrates in the poem "Crusoe in England". ; On the other hand, once the protagonists make a meaningful connection to the new sights and embrace the experience, the effects of their transformations are permanent. Liminality is therefore presented as a constant and potentially transformative process that is not only desirable, but above all, a sign of life.
Zielona Góra: Oficyna Wydawnicza Uniwersytetu Zielonogórskiego
Zeszyty Naukowe Uniwersytetu Zielonogórskiego: Seria Scripta Humana, tom 15
Biblioteka Uniwersytetu Zielonogórskiego
Feb 23, 2024
Feb 23, 2024
52
https://zbc.uz.zgora.pl/repozytorium/publication/87675
Edition name | Date |
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Liminal spaces and identities in Elizabeth Bishop`s poetry | Feb 23, 2024 |
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