Book contents
- Elizabeth Bishop in Context
- Elizabeth Bishop in Context
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figure
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Note on Referencing and Abbreviations
- Chronology
- Introduction
- Part I Places
- Chapter 1 Nova Scotia
- Chapter 2 New England
- Chapter 3 New York
- Chapter 4 Paris
- Chapter 5 Florida
- Chapter 6 Brazil
- Part II Forms
- Part III Literary Contexts
- Part IV Politics, Society and Culture
- Part V Identity
- Part VI Reception and Criticism
- Works Cited
- Index
Chapter 2 - New England
from Part I - Places
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 August 2021
- Elizabeth Bishop in Context
- Elizabeth Bishop in Context
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figure
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Note on Referencing and Abbreviations
- Chronology
- Introduction
- Part I Places
- Chapter 1 Nova Scotia
- Chapter 2 New England
- Chapter 3 New York
- Chapter 4 Paris
- Chapter 5 Florida
- Chapter 6 Brazil
- Part II Forms
- Part III Literary Contexts
- Part IV Politics, Society and Culture
- Part V Identity
- Part VI Reception and Criticism
- Works Cited
- Index
Summary
Born and buried in Worcester, Massachusetts, Bishop’s peripatetic life found its physical and temperamental hub in New England. Bishop lived in Massachusetts for the greater portion of her childhood and adolescence. Though she traveled widely and lived for years in Brazil, she continued to perceive the novelty of “elsewhere” as a native “New-Englander-herring-choker-bluenoser.” This chapter examines the ways in which the New England region informed Bishop’s imagination. The Atlantic shoreline remained a lifelong fascination, a way of reckoning with time, caprice and power in poems such as ”Wading at Wellfleet” and ”The End of March.” Further inland, Bishop’s poem ”In the Waiting Room” and story ”The Country Mouse” articulate disorientation and recognition in a rich tapestry of epiphany, narrative and social critique, a mode she revisits poignantly in the poem ”Five Flights Up.” Returning to Massachusetts for a teaching post at Harvard University in 1970, Bishop stayed in New England for most of the last decade of her life.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Elizabeth Bishop in Context , pp. 27 - 37Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021