In an essay of 2,000 words, discuss the following question: ‘A writer with no settled sense of home’. To what extent is this a fair characterisation of Elizabeth Bishop’s work?
Elizabeth Bishop 's autobiography is a difficult one to read. The premature death of her mother, at her own hands, led to her daughter being moved around for most of her adolescence. The distance she was moved was fairly vast too, from Nova Scotia in Canada to Boston in America, a distance of over 660 miles. Due to this, she could never have formed any close bonds to either society. Danson Brown makes reference to this in his chapter “from early childhood [...] she had a strong sense of being divided between different cultures and milieus” (Danson Brown, 2012, p. 211)This continued into her adulthood. Some of this sense of not belonging is clearly conveyed in her poetry.
The poem 'Sandpiper ' has no real sense of rhyme or metre. It has an unorthodox iambic pentameter, giving it a jumpy way of reading.
“looking for something, something, something.
Poor bird, he is obsessed” (Bishop, 1997 [1983], line 17 – 18) …show more content…
This could be alluding to the fact that settling down would seem like prison to her, in her poem 'the burglar of Babylon ', she frequently makes reference to the fact that staying in one place would be misery “the poor who come to Rio and can 't go home again” (Bishop, 1997 [1983], lines 3 – 4) and again later in the poem “they 've given me 90 years, who wants to live that long. I 'll settle for 90 hours in the hills of Babylon” (Bishop, 1997 [1983], lines 36 – 40). It might be noteworthy that the Brazil is itself an outsider, being separated from the rest of South America by the fact that it was colonised by the Portuguese rather than the
Elizabeth Bishop 's autobiography is a difficult one to read. The premature death of her mother, at her own hands, led to her daughter being moved around for most of her adolescence. The distance she was moved was fairly vast too, from Nova Scotia in Canada to Boston in America, a distance of over 660 miles. Due to this, she could never have formed any close bonds to either society. Danson Brown makes reference to this in his chapter “from early childhood [...] she had a strong sense of being divided between different cultures and milieus” (Danson Brown, 2012, p. 211)This continued into her adulthood. Some of this sense of not belonging is clearly conveyed in her poetry.
The poem 'Sandpiper ' has no real sense of rhyme or metre. It has an unorthodox iambic pentameter, giving it a jumpy way of reading.
“looking for something, something, something.
Poor bird, he is obsessed” (Bishop, 1997 [1983], line 17 – 18) …show more content…
This could be alluding to the fact that settling down would seem like prison to her, in her poem 'the burglar of Babylon ', she frequently makes reference to the fact that staying in one place would be misery “the poor who come to Rio and can 't go home again” (Bishop, 1997 [1983], lines 3 – 4) and again later in the poem “they 've given me 90 years, who wants to live that long. I 'll settle for 90 hours in the hills of Babylon” (Bishop, 1997 [1983], lines 36 – 40). It might be noteworthy that the Brazil is itself an outsider, being separated from the rest of South America by the fact that it was colonised by the Portuguese rather than the