Sexuality, Politics And Poetics: Adrienne Rich's Lesbian Feminism

Lesbian feminism, initiated by a group of American radical feminists in the early 1970s, is a new feminist critical approach, a historical, cultural and political discourse. It critiques patriarchy and heterosexuality as oppressive discourse mechanisms, questions the socially and culturally prescribed gender and sexual roles, embraces the diversities and complexities of female sexual identity as well as advocates a radical reordering of society with the goal of establishing a woman-identified world. Lesbian feminist literary criticism publicizes lesbianism as a literary subject and the main content of literary criticism, which is a manifestation of the lesbian feminist writers'profound thinking about and critique of the society.Adrienne Rich (1929- ), with her literary reputation as one of the American celebrated poets and feminist critics since the 1950s, has been a major voice in American lesbian feminism in the 1970s through the mid-1980s. Her lesbian feminist poetry and prose, concentrating on the explorations of the historical and social status of women in general and lesbians in particular, express her outspoken feminist political commitment. Rich's most lasting contribution to lesbian feminism is her profound analysis of"compulsory heterosexuality"as an oppressive institution and initiation of her concepts of"lesbian existence"and"lesbian continuum". Her lesbian feminist thought has significantly shaped lesbian feminist critical discourses and lesbian activism in the post-Stonewall era in the U.S.In terms of previous scholarship, foreign scholars have primarily examined a range of issues including the nature of lesbianism, lesbian images, identity politics and lesbian poetic tradition from different perspectives such as politics, society, history, culture and psychology since the 1970s. Domestic research on lesbian feminist theory is limited to some general introductions. Some articles are confined to the analyses of the issues of androgyny, sisterhood and lesbian identities in the lesbian works of a few British and American women writers. As for the scholarship on Rich, the research in western academia primarily goes to the development of Rich's feminism, political inclination and aesthetics in her poetry. But almost no concentrated and systematic work has been made on the essential issues of sexuality, politics and poetics in light of lesbian feminism. Domestic study on Rich only includes a few articles on her feminist works as well as a few pieces of translation work of Rich's poems and essays. There is almost no academic work on Rich's lesbian feminism.The present dissertation seeks to give an in-focus and in-depth discussion on the most essential issues of sexuality, politics and poetics in Adrienne Rich's lesbian feminism. The dissertation argues that Rich redefines lesbian sexuality, displays powerful political concerns and renovates the poetics, hence producing a new territory of feminist literature, criticism and political vision. The emphasis of the dissertation is the interpretation of Rich's lesbian feminist critical theory constructed in her prose and the analysis of its embodiment in her most representative lesbian feminist poetry. In terms of sexuality, Rich redefines, in an innovative way, the lesbian sexuality as both the desire for physical intimacy and the transcendence of eroticism, as a source of integrity and strength of mind and as a political power in such a way as to question the traditionally constructed notion of gender and sexuality to be assertive of multiplicities and complexities in the materiality of female sexual identity, to be assertive in the writer's right to politicize the sexuality; In terms of politics, Rich initiated the analysis of institutionalized heterosexuality as the key theme of lesbian feminism. Her powerful political inclination is perceived in incorporating the feminist ideology"the personal is the political", critiquing patriarchy and compulsory heterosexuality, renaming the materiality of lesbian experiences by proposing the concepts of"lesbian existence"and"lesbian continuum"as well as urging the restructuring of feminist analysis and criticism. The political significance of these concepts consists in transcending the established male-dominating heterosexuality and drawing a blueprint of the woman-identified world, thus politicizing lesbian feminism as a new stance to challenge the deeply-embedded female/lesbian discrimination and endowing woman's history and reality with new meaning. In terms of poetics, Rich fuses a lesbian feminist poetics out of politics. She manifests poetic originality in expression of her strong political commitment through representations of lesbian/female experiences and articulation of their common dream, including transcending the interiority and domesticity of lesbian writing, poetic identification with women, reforming the conventionality of romantic love poetry, and particularly, the use of common language. With these poetics of transgression, Rich means to build up the connections between the private and the public, between the individual and the collective, thus contributing to the political themes of seeking freedom, justice and integrity in her lesbian feminist poetry.Rich's lesbian feminist vision is profound in its critique and revolution behind her radicalism. What is essential for Rich's lesbian feminist ideology is not an individualized or autonomized lesbian behavior, but the social, cultural and political institution that regulates the history and reality of lesbian/female existence. It critiques the male-dominating heterosexual paradigm and discourse mechanism. She urges the restructuring of the feminist analysis and criticism to publicize the silenced lesbian/female history and marginalized reality, in such a way as to politicize literature. This strategy of evolving from sexuality to politics and then to literature may stimulate feminists'rethinking about female sexual identity, consciousness of female power, female sexual subjectivity and agency to construct the notion of freedom, equality and justice in a real sense, and to fulfill new sex/gender liberation. This is the epistemology of Rich's lesbian feminism. And this is what is essential in our understanding of Rich as a political writer, a theorist and a humanist intellectual.This dissertation, with its in-depth and in-focus theoretical interpretation, will be conducive to the understanding of lesbian feminist theory as well as the exploration of the social, collective and individual actuality in lesbian literature in the era of cultural pluralism. The dissertation carries the hope that it will inspire more academic work on lesbian feminist criticism and the hope that this ongoing scholarship will be furthered in its own way.