Writing on the Margins of America's Consciousness: Elizabeth Bishop in Brazil (2010)

Undergraduate: Michelle Hicks

Faculty Advisor: Michael Chitwood
Department: English

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Elizabeth Bishop was an American poet whose writing was under appreciated during her own time but has since increased dramatically in popularity and critical reception. Part of the lack of acknowledgment for her work during the 1930's-60's seems to have to do with her marginalization from both popular and literary culture: she was a woman, a lesbian, an orphan, and a nomad, living outside of the U.S. for most of her adult life. For nearly 20 years, she lived in Brazil. Not only did the culture of Brazil leave a distinct mark on the subject matter of Bishop's poetry, the Brazil poems build to a shift in her work in terms of tone and philosophical intensity. In traveling to Brazil, I attempted to further explore this shift by tracing her footsteps through Rio and Minas Gerais. Through reading her letters, drafts, and journals, I was able to locate some of the specific things or locations that inspired the poems. I was then able to take what I had observed and draw conclusions about the role of place in altering Bishop's understanding of artistic perspective. In her view, the artist must be marginalized, observing from the boundaries, in order to develop a clear sense of artistic sight. The symbol in her poetry for this phenomenon is "the virgin mirror," and by unpacking this symbol we discover the full dialectic of place, perspective, and the essential position of the margin.