The Intellectual Stance And Poetics

Adrienne Rich (1929-2012), the distinguished poetess, feminist and critic of contemporary America, has been particularly known for her radical feminism and distinct political stance since the1970s. Rich simultaneously fulfills her outspoken intellectual responsibilities and develops her poetics in her works on public issues such as global women, political justice, racial discrimination, social equality and the like. Her prose What Is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics (1993) is a typical one that manifests her academic commitments to realize the dreams of democracy and to refine her poetics.This thesis focuses on what Rich’s intellectual stance is and how she applies her poetics in this prose work. Through an in-depth analysis of the factors for her stance, the common themes and techniques of her later poetry, this thesis makes its attempt to elaborate on two points:first, Rich maintains a critical stance in repudiating American social injustice and in speaking for the oppressed; second, Rich embarks upon scaffolding dialogic and revisionary poetics by protecting language meaning from capitalist deprivation and by encompassing the transnational and heterogeneous audiences. All these explorations are intended to provide a relatively comprehensive perspective to appreciate the interaction among Rich’s poetry and prose, poetics and politics.