“NOTHING BUT A SPACE THAT SOMEONE HAS TO FILL”: ON SUSPENSION OF BELIEF IN CONTEMPORARY BRITISH WOMEN’S POETRY
“NOTHING BUT A SPACE THAT SOMEONE HAS TO FILL”: ON SUSPENSION OF BELIEF IN CONTEMPORARY BRITISH WOMEN’S POETRY

Summary/Abstract: An essential feature of contemporary British poetry is the dramatic conflict between the multiple facets of self-divided identity. Among others, obsession with inner alterity and outer identity translates into minute investigation of the relationship with Divinity, displayed in a wide range of attitudes, from unconditioned obedience and fidelity to chronic disappointment and bold disbelief. Following the tradition of Stevie Smith’s distrust in the supreme authority, poets like Elizabeth Bartlett, Veronica Forrest-Thomson and Sophie Hannah contemplate the purpose of praying and the utility ofmetaphysical relationships in acid commentaries. Taking the liberty of embracing agnosticism, they reject the illusion of living on a promise, dispelling the grounds of expectation for future achievements in another realm than the Earth. Their outbursts of profaneness, closely bordering on blasphemy, are counterbalanced by Helen Ivory,Kathleen Raine, Imtiaz Dharker and Myra Schneider in meditations introducing God’s uncomfortable response to the decay of religion in the modern world of reversed values.Although faith is impossible for the present-day secular man in an environment stripped of spiritual meaning, there is still a deeply human desire to believe in something beyond any possible comprehension since human imagination needs support from inexplicable external resorts.

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