Habits of devotion: Problems of belief in Elizabeth Bishop's poetry.

Abstract

This study, considers the prevailing tension between Bishop's desire and her stated inability to sustain religious belief. Her favorite poets work toward a balance of authenticity and decorum in exploring spiritual experience, which is the business of poetry as Bishop sees it. Bishop never becomes a religious poet but religious habits of feeling remain central to her poetic mission. The earliest poems show her struggles to bring spiritual turbulence under formal control. Bishop's middle and late poems reveal that she grows ever more ready to make turbulence itself her subject. Bishop's poetry chronicles numerous trips along the boundaries between realms of experience; each of these localized journeys is part of a larger spiritual trek. Bishop works to place herself more firmly within the society of fellow travelers like Herbert and Hopkins. Bishop struggles against the temptation to allow herself to retreat further into isolation. Her commitment to travel poses considerable risk. Balked of certain knowledge, Bishop continues to cultivate habits of devotion, hoping to find her way into a community she values. The late poems do not record accomplishment of belief: Bishop remains modestly agnostic. Chapter One introduces general problems of contextualizing Bishop's work and points to limitations in standard critical treatments of religious issues in her poetry. Chapter Two summarizes formative experiences from Bishop's early life that yield religious images and themes and shape her patterns of thought. Chapter Three addresses problems of religious belief as Bishop explores them. Chapter Four argues that the poems that follow her first collection display a meditative quality that Bishop has taken pains to cultivate; meditation allows Bishop to express her devotional temperament. Chapter Five looks at examples from Bishop's exile poems, meditations on isolation that explore the difficulty of remaining in community once the self has been moved outside. Chapter Six summarizes and proposes that Bishop's late work reflects a hard-won confidence in her own devotional outlook. Throughout this study, I point to poems that make obvious and intentional references to Bishop's favorite religious poets; such references point to Bishop's determination to identify herself with religious seekers despite the absence of religious convictions. (Abstract shortened with permission of author.).