Through an examination of the psychological patterns of the voyeurism and fetishism in Herrick's love poetry a paradigm of triangulation emerges. Though ostensibly concerned with woman as an erotic object, the amorous poems enact strategies of avoidance and displacement which express the same horror toward the feminine seen in the coarse epigrams. The latent misogyny in Hesperides is concealed in the amorous poetry. This grotesque body can, in turn, be related to a maternal figure. Centered on the grotesque female body, Herrick's vulgar epigrams display his overt misogyny. Hesperides is a concentrated example, as it were, of well established literary paradigms of misogyny and the cultural paradigms of misogyny seen in the querelle des femmes. Though the ostensible concern of these texts is the female role within the family and society, an idiom of sexuality is established through an emphasis on the female body. In the documents of the querelle des femmes women are discussed in their various social roles: mother, wife, and daughter. This Renaissance preoccupation with the feminine, in turn, displays both a blatant and latent cultural misogyny. Indeed, the presentation of women in Hesperides reflects a larger cultural preoccupation with the feminine seen in Renaissance literature in general and in the cultural documents of the querelle des femmes (1540-1648) in particular. Robert Herrick's Hesperides is a volume of poetry preoccupied with the feminine.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |