THE IMAGE OF FEMALE BODY AND SEXUALITY IN THE POETRY BY ANNE SEXTON, ADRIENNE RICH AND SYLVIA PLATH

Abstract

The research is an attempt to analyze the images of female body and sexuality in the poetry by American authors Anne Sexton, Adrienne Rich and Sylvia Plath. Special attention is paid to the concept of women’s writing, modern theories of corporeality, sexuality and the problems of the body and the language, which have been considered as major features of women’s poetry in the second half of the 20th century.The theoretical background of the article is based on the works of Helene Cixous, Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva, Jane Gallop, Alicia Ostriker, Christina Britzolakis, Jacqueline Rose,in which they defined the concepts of women’s writing and language, women’s subject, bodiness and corporality. The article analyzes a number of related issues: firstly, it determines how well-known theories of women’s writing are consistent with the peculiarities of the female experience and its realization in a poetic text, especially on the level of the themes and motifs; secondly, it studies how the female body images are expressed in the poetry by Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath and Adrienne Rich, what are the similarities between their corporeal imagery and what are the differences. The article analyses modern feminist works as well as gender studies.