「난세의 지도」: 시와 정치에 대한 에이드리언 리치의 명상록

Abstract

An Atlas of the Difficult World is a long poem that takes the Gulf War of 1990-1991 as its historical background. Even though some critics say that artists should avoid being involved with politics, Rich has never stood outside history. All her life she has spoken up her position in the time of national crisis and yet never sacrificed her aesthetics in her choice of poetic imagery and language. Particularly, her poetic ability to take outside history inside poetic texts and expand her poetic meaning outside the textual frame is exemplified in this long poem that meditates the role of a poetry in the time of the Gulf War. Therefore, by using the approach of close reading, this paper tries to follow Rich's quest to the answers to the real meaning of patriotism. By looking deep into the intellectual map drawn by Rich, this paper will illuminate the psychological progress of Rich responding to her own mother land and the new generation of Americans in the 1990s.