Of Creative Crones and Poetry: Developing Age Studies Through Literature

Abstract

As a comparative look at the works of May Sarton and Adrienne Rich shows, literature can contribute to the development of age studies in a variety of ways, some of which may not be obvious. Sarton's direct treatment of aging provides a key to the less apparent approaches Rich takes in her later career to further our understanding of age. Employing radically different strategies, the two writers constitute an odd couple of "creative crones" whose combined efforts have begun to generate a critique of aging that we as feminists and human beings desperately need as we confront the future.