{"title":"Alicia Suskin Ostriker’s Feminist Poetics: Reading Biblical Poetry as Countertheology","authors":"Sean Burt","doi":"10.2979/ptx.2023.a899254","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: Alicia Suskin Ostriker is the author of a wide range of literary and critical works, including several books of poetry and criticism of English-language poetry. This article argues that Ostriker’s work as a poet and literary scholar informs her engagement with biblical literature, particularly biblical poetry. In her formative work on twentieth-century English-language women’s poetry, she articulates how women’s poetry voices embodied identities and creates spaces of intimacy that can break down ideologically constructed barriers. Her creative, poetic biblical criticism mutually informs her interest in the ability of women’s poetry to transform and revise male-dominated mythologies. For Ostriker, the poetry of the Bible provides a resource located within Jewish tradition that can transform it from the inside. As a reader and creative inheritor of the literary heritage of the Bible who is carefully attuned to its literary power, Ostriker’s work reading and revisioning the Bible creates a feminist countertheology grounded in the aesthetic, material possibilities of poetic language.","PeriodicalId":43444,"journal":{"name":"PROOFTEXTS-A JOURNAL OF JEWISH LITERARY HISTORY","volume":"23 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2000,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"PROOFTEXTS-A JOURNAL OF JEWISH LITERARY HISTORY","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.2979/ptx.2023.a899254","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LITERATURE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract: Alicia Suskin Ostriker is the author of a wide range of literary and critical works, including several books of poetry and criticism of English-language poetry. This article argues that Ostriker’s work as a poet and literary scholar informs her engagement with biblical literature, particularly biblical poetry. In her formative work on twentieth-century English-language women’s poetry, she articulates how women’s poetry voices embodied identities and creates spaces of intimacy that can break down ideologically constructed barriers. Her creative, poetic biblical criticism mutually informs her interest in the ability of women’s poetry to transform and revise male-dominated mythologies. For Ostriker, the poetry of the Bible provides a resource located within Jewish tradition that can transform it from the inside. As a reader and creative inheritor of the literary heritage of the Bible who is carefully attuned to its literary power, Ostriker’s work reading and revisioning the Bible creates a feminist countertheology grounded in the aesthetic, material possibilities of poetic language.
期刊介绍:
For sixteen years, Prooftexts: A Journal of Jewish Literary History has brought to the study of Jewish literature, in its many guises and periods, new methods of study and a new wholeness of approach. A unique exchange has taken place between Israeli and American scholars, as more work from Israelis has appeared in the journal. Prooftexts" thematic issues have made important contributions to the field.