“Strange women teaching stranger things”: mediumship and female agency in nineteenth- century american spiritualist poetry.

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This article explores the paradoxes posed by American spiritualist poetry in relation to the female voice within nineteenth-century culture. Due to the associations between the passive and sensitive feminine ideal, as well as women’s supposedly innate moral and spiritual superiority, the ideology embraced by the spiritualist community granted its female followers a central role in the emerging movement while remaining compliant with the values of the period. As an example, spiritualist authors Lizzie Doten and Achsa Sprague made use of trance poetry to challenge the stereotypes which were meant to prevent women from participating in public life. By tracing the connections between mediumship and the act of writing it is possible to disclose the diverse strategies that such poets borrowed from spiritualist discourse in order to adapt their work to a readership that would rather believe in ghosts than in self-sufficient female authorship. RESUMEN: Este articulo explora las paradojas planteadas por la poesia espiritista americana en relacion con la voz femenina en la cultura decimononica. Debido a las asociaciones entre el ideal de femineidad pasivo y sensible, ademas de la superioridad moral y espiritual supuestamente innata de las mujeres, la ideologia adoptada por la comunidad espiritista otorgaba a sus seguidoras un papel central en el movimiento emergente mientras, al mismo tiempo, permanecia de acuerdo con los valores de la epoca. Por ejemplo, las autoras espiritistas Lizzie Doten y Achsa Sprague utilizaron la poesia escrita en trance para poner en cuestion los estereotipos que impedian a las mujeres participar en la vida publica. Al trazar las conexiones entre la naturaleza de la medium y la escritura es posible revelar las diversas estrategias que aquellas poetas tomaban prestadas del discurso espiritista para adaptar su trabajo a lectores que preferian creer en los fantasmas antes que en la autoria femenina autosuficiente.