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Elizabeth Bishop did not count herself as an adherent of any poetic school or movement, and she did not espouse any particular poetic philosophy, preferring instead to let her poetry speak for itself. She was certainly influenced by other poets, however, both past and contemporary, and she maintained close lifelong friendships with two of the most important American poets of the 20th century, Marianne Moore and Robert Lowell. Bishop names among her chief early influences George Herbert (1593-1633), an English Metaphysical poet, and Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889), an English Victorian poet who straddled the Romantic and Modernist movements.
Hopkins, himself influenced by the earlier Metaphysical poets, was a unique poetic voice. Like Bishop, he wanted to be a painter rather than a poet. Hopkins’ love of art, that striving to represent the physical world and the world of nature, had direct implications on his poetry. He believed that the key to understanding hidden connections and patterns was through keen observation. Some of his main poetic trademarks are minutely detailed, highly original word pictures of the world around him; a belief that nature reveals religious truths; and a Victorian approach to uniting science and aesthetics. The contemplative, observational stance of Hopkins’ poetry, as well as his insistence on finding the precise words and fresh, surprising images for natural phenomena greatly appealed to Bishop.
It is the Modernist movement (roughly 1890-1950), however, that exerted the most influence on Bishop’s poetics. Modernism is a general label that includes multiple strands of artistic and philosophical thought. It is largely seen as a reaction against Romanticism and the changing worldview sparked by the Industrial Revolution and increased urbanization, fast-paced scientific advancement, and large-scale societal crises such as the First World War and the Russian Revolution. One of the defining characteristics of Modernism can be found in the call by Ezra Pound, one of the movement’s early leaders, to “Make it new!” from a book with the same name, published in 1934. Looking at the everyday world with fresh eyes and finding new ways to express human perceptions of reality was a main Modernist project. Defamiliarization of the familiar, so that one’s mind does not simply glide over the familiar, but instead tries to make meaning out of it, became a trademark device.
Especially influential was Marianne Moore (1887-1972). After meeting while Bishop was still a student at Vassar, the two maintained a close relationship that was sustained mostly through a voluminous correspondence after Bishop began widely traveling. The two met during some of Moore’s most prolific years, when she was cementing her reputation as a poet of acclaim. Like Bishop, Moore disliked talking too much about poetry and poetics. Like other Modernists, Moore’s style elevated impersonality and emotional detachment, and of the natural world she wrote with a scientist’s eye for detail Always wary of giving too much away, Bishop herself was most comfortable with this style and tone, adopting it in her own poetry.
As with literary affiliations, Elizabeth Bishop did not align herself with political movements. She expressed distaste for overtly political poetry, dismissing it as mere propaganda. In addition, she was vehemently opposed to being included in women-only anthologies, believing instead that such separatism perpetuated stereotypes about art produced by women. In interviews she expressed that she preferred anthologies to be a mix of sexes, colors, and races, and that art itself transcended the identity of the artist. Her stance against politics in art and her refusal to highlight her identity as a woman in her work led some critics to charge her with harboring anti-feminist views. Her natural reticence, in her work and in her life, meant that she granted few interviews and talked very little about her life, her work, and her views. This tendency toward privacy may have served to fuel the notion that she was somehow aloof when it came to the emerging struggles for social justice in the 1960’s and 70’s.
Bishop was, however, keenly aware of social issues, including class inequities. Briefly, while a student at Vassar College, she attended socialist meetings. Left-leaning thinkers and artists of the 1930’s, formative years of Bishop’s young adulthood, embraced Marxist values, and Bishop’s milieu at Vassar was no different. Despite her relative financial security, the Great Depression was the backdrop to Bishop’s college years. During this time, she witnessed the privations of family members, especially those in rural Nova Scotia.
Later her wide-ranging travel, especially in the developing world, brought her face to face with class injustices. During her long sojourn in Brazil, especially, which spanned the two decades of the 1950’s and 60’s, she became acutely aware of the oppression perpetuated by racism and classism. Some of her poems from this period, such as “The Burglar of Babylon,” “Squatter’s Children,” “Manuelzinho,” and “Pink Dog,” are witness to the indignities suffered by Brazil’s poor. These poems, as well as earlier work such as “The Roosters” and “Cootchie,” demonstrate that Bishop recognized and was affected by the injustices she saw around her.
From childhood on, Bishop was familiar with what it meant to be an outsider on many levels: as an orphan and a guest in the multiple households she was shuttled to, as a woman, as a lesbian, as an expatriate in a foreign country. Indeed, poet Adrienne Rich has argued that Bishop’s work can be seen as an attempt “to explore marginality, power and powerlessness” (“The Eye of the Outsider: Elizabeth Bishop’s Complete Poems, 1927-1979,” from Blood, Bread, and Poetry by Adrienne Rich, Norton Press (1986), pp. 124-35). Late in life, Bishop bemoaned the fact that women poets suffer discouragement early in their careers, and complained of society’s dismissive attitude toward women, especially as they enter older age. Bishop even confided to Adrienne Rich, who identified strongly as a feminist and lesbian poet, a desire to emulate Rich and deal more openly with women’s issues in her poetry.
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By Elizabeth Bishop