原創詩：
ONE
From Sappho to myself, consider the fate of women.
How unwomanly to discuss it! Like a noose or an albatross necktie
The clinical sobriquet hangs us: codpiece coveters.
Never mind these epithets; I myself have collected some honeys.
Juvenal set us apart in denouncing our vices
Which had grown, in part, from having been set apart:
Women abused their spouses, cuckolded them, even plotted
To poison them. Sensing, behind the violence of his manner—
“Think I'm crazy or drunk?”—his emotional stake in us,
As we forgive Strindberg and Nietzsche, we forgive all those
Who cannot forget us. We
are
hyenas. Yes, we admit it.
While men have politely debated free will, we have howled for it,
Howl still, pacing the centuries, tragedy heroines.
Some who sat quietly in the corner with their embroidery
Were Defarges, stabbing the wool with the names of their ancient
Oppressors, who ruled by the divine right of the male—
I’m impatient of interruptions! I’m aware there were millions
Of mutes for every Saint Joan or sainted Jane Austen,
Who, vague-eyed and acquiescent, worshiped God as a man.
I’m not concerned with those cabbageheads, not truly feminine
But neutered by labor. I mean real women, like
you
and like
me.
Freed in fact, not in custom, lifted from furrow and scullery,
Not obliged, now, to be the pot for the annual chicken,
Have we begun to arrive in time?
With our well-known
Respect for life because it hurts so much to come out with it;
Disdainful of “sovereignty,” “national honor;” and other abstractions;
We can say, like the ancient Chinese to successive waves of invaders,
“Relax, and let us absorb
you.
You can learn temperance
In a more temperate climate.” Give us just a few decades
Of grace, to encourage the fine art of acquiescence
And we might save the race. Meanwhile, observe our creative chaos,
Flux, efflorescence—whatever you care to call it!
TWO
I take as my theme “The Independent Woman,”
Independent but maimed: observe the exigent neckties
Choking violet writers; the sad slacks of stipple-faced matrons;
Indigo intellectuals, crop-haired and callus-toed,
Cute spectacles, chewed cuticles, aced out by full-time beauties
In the race for a male. Retreating to drabness, bad manners,
And sleeping with manuscripts. Forgive our transgressions
Of old gallantries as we hitch in chairs, light our own cigarettes,
Not expecting your care, having forfeited it by trying to get even.
But we need dependency, cosseting, and well-treatment.
So do men sometimes. Why don’t they admit it?
We will be cows for a while, because babies howl for us,
Be kittens or bitches, who want to eat grass now and then
For the sake of our health. But the role of pastoral heroine
Is not permanent, Jack. We want to get back to the meeting.
Knitting booties and brows, tartars or termagants, ancient
Fertility symbols, chained to our cycle, released
Only in part by devices of hygiene and personal daintiness,
Strapped into our girdles, held down, yet uplifted by man’s
Ingenious constructions, holding coiffures in a breeze,
Hobbled and swathed in whimsy, tripping on feminine
Shoes with fool heels, losing our lipsticks, you, me,
In ephemeral stockings, clutching our handbags and packages.
Our masks, always in peril of smearing or cracking,
In need of continuous check in the mirror or silverware,
Keep us in thrall to ourselves, concerned with our surfaces.
Look at man’s uniform drabness, his impersonal envelope!
Over chicken wrists or meek shoulders, a formal, hard-fibered assurance.
The drape of the male is designed to achieve self-forgetfulness.
So, Sister, forget yourself a few times and see where it gets you:
Up the creek, alone with your talent, sans everything else.
You can wait for the menopause, and catch up on your reading.
So primp, preen, prink, pluck, and prize your flesh,
All posturings! All ravishment! All sensibility!
Meanwhile, have you used your mind today?
What pomegranate raised you from the dead,
Springing, full-grown, from your own head, Athena?
THREE
I will speak about women of letters, for I’m in the racket.
Our biggest successes to date? Old maids to a woman.
And our saddest conspicuous failures? The married spinsters
On loan to the husbands they treated like surrogate fathers.
Think of that crew of self-pitiers, not-very-distant,
Who carried the torch for themselves and got first-degree burns.
Or the sad sonneteers, toast-and-teasdales we loved at thirteen;
Middle-aged virgins seducing the puerile anthologists
Through lust-of-the-mind; barbiturate-drenched Camilles
With continuous periods, murmuring softly on sofas
When poetry wasn’t a craft but a sickly effluvium,
The air thick with incense, musk, and emotional blackmail.
I suppose they reacted from an earlier womanly modesty
When too many girls were scabs to their stricken sisterhood,
Impugning our sex to stay in good with the men,
Commencing their insecure bluster. How they must have swaggered
When women themselves endorsed their own inferiority!
Vestals, vassals, and vessels, rolled into several,
They took notes in rolling syllabics, in careful journals,
Aiming to please a posterity that despises them.
But we’ll always have traitors who swear that a woman surrenders
Her Supreme Function, by equating Art with aggression
And failure with Femininity. Still, it’s just as unfair
To equate Art with Femininity, like a prettily packaged commodity
When we are the custodians of the world’s best-kept secret:
Merely the private lives of one-half of humanity.
But even with masculine dominance, we mares and mistresses
Produced some sleek saboteuses, making their cracks
Which the porridge-brained males of the day were too thick to perceive,
Mistaking young hornets for perfectly harmless bumblebees.
Being thought innocuous rouses some women to frenzy;
They try to be ugly by aping the ways of men
And succeed. Swearing, sucking cigars and scorching the bedspread,
Slopping straight shots, eyes blotted, vanity-blown
In the expectation of glory:
she writes like a man!
This drives other women mad in a mist of chiffon.
(One poetess draped her gauze over red flannels, a practical feminist.)
But we’re emerging from all that, more or less,
Except for some ladylike laggards and Quarterly priestesses
Who flog men for fun, and kick women to maim competition.
Now, if we struggle abnormally, we may almost seem normal;
If we submerge our self-pity in disciplined industry;
If we stand up and be hated, and swear not to sleep with editors;
If we regard ourselves formally, respecting our true limitations
Without making an unseemly show of trying to unfreeze our assets;
Keeping our heads and our pride while remaining unmarried;
And if wedded, kill guilt in its tracks when we stack up the dishes
And defect to the typewriter. And if mothers, believe in the luck of our children,
Whom we forbid to devour us, whom we shall not devour,
And the luck of our husbands and lovers, who keep free women.
詩的分析與詮釋
這首強而有力的詩探討了女性在歷史、文化和社會中的複雜與演變的命運。它分為三個部分，每個部分都針對女性身份的不同方面：從歷史壓迫和社會刻板印象，到獨立的掙扎，最後是女性在文學和創意領域所面臨的挑戰。
第一部分：女性的歷史與社會命運
詩的開頭提到薩福，這位象徵女性聲音和創造力的古希臘女詩人，然後轉向講者的個人反思。它突顯了女性如何被貼上貶義標籤（"codpiece coveters"）並受到不公平的評價。詩人承認了歷史上對女性的惡行，這往往是由於她們的邊緣化。語氣既反抗又反思，承認了嚴厲的標籤（"hyenas"），但也通過對自由意志的吼叫來重新獲得主權，經歷了幾個世紀的壓迫。女性被描繪成受害者和抵抗者，雖然被社會角色所束縛，但卻充滿創造性的混亂和韌性。
第二部分：獨立女性
這一部分聚焦於現代獨立女性，她們在社會期望和約束下"獨立卻受傷"。它描述了為了競爭而採用男性特徵（"swearing, sucking cigars"）與仍然束縛女性的傳統女性角色（"knitting booties", "strapped into girdles"）之間的緊張關係。詩批評了表面的外觀和社會壓力，要求女性利用她們的智慧和才能（"have you used your mind today?"）。提到雅典娜，智慧女神，象徵著女性智慧和力量的誕生。
第三部分：文學女性與創作掙扎
最後一部分討論了女性作家和藝術家，突顯了她們的歷史邊緣化和內部衝突。它指出了"老處女"和"已婚的單身女"的刻板印象，這些女性被困在社會角色和個人抱負之間。詩批評了某些女性如何內化劣勢，以及藝術如何被不公平地性別化。儘管男性主導，女性仍然創作出強大且顛覆性的作品，這些作品往往未能被男性認可。詩的結尾充滿希望，鼓勵女性擁抱真實的自我，努力工作，並在創意和個人自由中互相支持。
背景與作者介紹
這首詩反映了女性主義思想，可能受到第二波女性主義運動的啟發，該運動強調女性解放、平等以及對女性在歷史和文化中角色的重新評估。詩人運用了豐富的文學典故——從薩福和尤維納爾到聖女貞德和簡·奧斯汀——來框架女性身份和認可的持續鬥爭。
作者以坦率且有時帶有諷刺的語氣，挑戰傳統性別規範，並呼籲對女性經驗的更深刻理解，超越刻板印象。詩的風格結合了歷史批評、個人反思和文化評論，使其成為女性主義文學中的重要作品。
反思與見解
閱讀這首詩提供了對女性身份複雜性的深刻見解——社會期望與個人自由之間的緊張關係、女性聲音的歷史沉默，以及持續爭取認可和平等的鬥爭。它鼓勵讀者質疑刻板印象，欣賞女性生活中固有的創造性混亂和韌性。
這首詩還促使人們反思當今女性如何能繼續打破限制角色，擁抱她們的全部智力和創造潛力。
教育價值與學生學習要點
學生和年輕讀者可以從這首詩中學到幾個重要的教訓：
- 歷史意識： 了解女性角色和自由如何隨著時間演變。
- 批判性思維： 分析社會刻板印象並質疑性別規範。
- 文學欣賞： 認識文學手法，如典故、隱喻和諷刺。
- 同理心與身份： 探索自我接受、韌性和爭取平等的主題。
- 女性主義文學： 獲得對女性主義觀點的洞察，以及女性聲音在文學和歷史中的重要性。
生活與學習中的實際應用
- 在課堂討論中： 這首詩可以用來引發有關性別角色、歷史和社會正義的對話。
- 創意寫作： 學生可以受到啟發，寫下自己對身份和社會的反思。
- 個人成長： 鼓勵年輕女性重視自己的智力和創造力，挑戰限制性的刻板印象。
- 文化研究： 幫助學生理解文學、歷史和女性主義的交集。
閱讀理解練習
- 詩中提到哪些歷史人物來說明女性的掙扎？
- 詩中如何描述"獨立女性"？
- 詩人所說的女性"吼叫著追求自由意志"是什麼意思？
- 為什麼女性作家被稱為"老處女"或"已婚的單身女"？
- 詩中提到雅典娜的意義是什麼？
- 詩如何挑戰傳統性別角色？
- 詩傳達了關於女性創造力和韌性的什麼信息？
答案鍵
- 詩中提到薩福、尤維納爾、斯特林堡、尼采、聖女貞德、簡·奧斯汀等人來說明女性的歷史掙扎和社會評價。
- "獨立女性"被描述為強大但受限，有時為了競爭而採用男性特徵，但仍然受到傳統女性角色和社會期望的束縛。
- "吼叫著追求自由意志"象徵著女性在歷史上持續為自主和自由而奮鬥，儘管遭受壓迫。
- 女性作家被稱為"老處女"或"已婚的單身女"是為了突顯她們的社會邊緣化以及個人抱負與傳統角色之間的衝突。
- 雅典娜代表智慧和女性智慧的誕生，鼓勵女性充分利用自己的頭腦和才能。
- 詩通過批評刻板印象、揭露女性所戴的面具，並促進智力和創造自由來挑戰性別角色。
- 詩讚美女性的創造力和韌性，顯示她們如何抵抗壓迫並在文化中做出重要貢獻，儘管面臨障礙。
這首詩是理解女性身份的歷史和文化維度的豐富資源，鼓勵批判性思考和個人賦權。
