There are two ways to use gender when analyzing literature. The first way is to use it to understand an author. The second way is to use gender to read and interpret the poem. In a male dominated 1920s world, women had to fight for their own voice in order to be accepted as remotely equal to their male counterparts. Gilbert and Guber say that a women writer generally, “searches for a female model not because she wants dutifully to comply with male definitions of her ‘femininity’ but because she must legitimize her own rebellious endeavors” (292). Women writers also had to come to terms with men like Dan Morin who defends the argument that lessening poetic standards resulted in the influx of women writers. Women had to fight against this stigma by ultimately proving their worth. Therefore, when reading the Hebrew and Yiddish poetry of Jewish women during the early twentieth century, it is fundamental to analyze the text by considering the role of gender.
Norich says that, “the tendency to read women’s texts as confessional or unself-consciously autobiographical” could potentially lead to “the female writer [becoming] less the writing subject than the object being written.” If we see gender as a way to understand society and interpret Norich’s statement in the same manner, I think Norich’s statement would be more applicable to today’s world, where women are given more equal opportunity than they were in the 1920s. A woman writer in the early twentieth century would inherently strongly consider gender in her pieces because of the significant role gender played in the ease of a writer’s exposure and acceptance in society. If we apply Norich’s statement to the reading of a poem, she is completely correct—we cannot solely use gender to interpret a poem.
Because women poets such as Ra’hel wrote during a time when women were just beginning to create a voice for themselves as poets, gender can be considered to have a significant impact on not only their writings, but also on the way their poetry was perceived.These women writers must constantly compare themselves to other male poet legends, and if there is one obvious difference between women poets and, let’s say, Bialik, it is gender.
Keeping Norich’s warning in mind, critical analysis using gender is also a way to better understand the literature. As Gilbert and Guber discuss, because of a patriarchal society, women writers dealt with a lot of darker subjects. They state, “[The female anxiety of authorship] is in many ways the germ of a disease or, at any rate, a disaffection, a disturbance, a distrust, that spreads like a stain throughout the style and structure of much literature by women” (293). Without looking at gender we would not pick up on such a motif in the writing.
Norich says that, “the tendency to read women’s texts as confessional or unself-consciously autobiographical” could potentially lead to “the female writer [becoming] less the writing subject than the object being written.” If we see gender as a way to understand society and interpret Norich’s statement in the same manner, I think Norich’s statement would be more applicable to today’s world, where women are given more equal opportunity than they were in the 1920s. A woman writer in the early twentieth century would inherently strongly consider gender in her pieces because of the significant role gender played in the ease of a writer’s exposure and acceptance in society. If we apply Norich’s statement to the reading of a poem, she is completely correct—we cannot solely use gender to interpret a poem.
Because women poets such as Ra’hel wrote during a time when women were just beginning to create a voice for themselves as poets, gender can be considered to have a significant impact on not only their writings, but also on the way their poetry was perceived.These women writers must constantly compare themselves to other male poet legends, and if there is one obvious difference between women poets and, let’s say, Bialik, it is gender.
Keeping Norich’s warning in mind, critical analysis using gender is also a way to better understand the literature. As Gilbert and Guber discuss, because of a patriarchal society, women writers dealt with a lot of darker subjects. They state, “[The female anxiety of authorship] is in many ways the germ of a disease or, at any rate, a disaffection, a disturbance, a distrust, that spreads like a stain throughout the style and structure of much literature by women” (293). Without looking at gender we would not pick up on such a motif in the writing.
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