Dorothy Livesay's poetics of desire.

Abstract

Dorothy Livesay's poetic exploration of love illuminates the relationship that exists between the individual woman artist and a culture shaped by men's experiences and stories. Chapter 1 surveys the critical treatment of Livesay's love poems, illustrating how theoretical superimposition can distort the subtext which gives the poems their energy and power. Chapter 2 analyses the thematic and imagistic portrayal of the love relationship present in the poems written during early womanhood, and establishes a link between sexuality and textuality. Chapter 3 explores the violent sexual/textual conflicts contained within the intensely erotic poems of Livesay's middle-age, framed by The Unquiet Bed (1967) and Disasters of the Sun (1971). Chapter 4 examines the resolution of these conflicts in the later poetry, starting with Ice Age (1975) and receiving clearest expression in Feeling the Worlds (1984). Livesay achieves a unified and unambiguous voice when she finds a way to unite her eroticism with her political concerns, and she ultimately succeeds in realizing a clear vision of her role as a woman writer.