| 词组 | poetess |
| 释义 | poetess Poetess, Evans 1957 says, "emphasizes the sex of the writer when the sex is largely irrelevant." That, of course, is a modern view. An 1873 citation in the OED informs us that Homer and Sappho were considered so preeminent among the ancients that Homer was referred to simply as "the poet" and Sappho as "the poetess." The word, as Reader's Digest 1983 observes (in recommending poet), has been associated with Sappho in English from 1593 to at least 1984: • ... the Greek poetess Sappho —Helen C. Griffith, Southern Accents, September-October 1984 Copperud 1970, 1980 tells us that poetess has fallen into disuse; he is, without knowing it, repeating the opinion of Priestley 1761, who pronounced it almost obsolete. Fitzedward Hall 1873, who dug out the Priestley pronouncement, thought the word established. Shaw 1987 observes that poetess and several other words ending in -ess were considered offensive "even before the women's lib movement." This is true, but the grounds on which they offended apparently had little to do with women's sensibilities. The attack seems to have been started by Edward S. Gould in 1867. His comments show him to have been offended by most compounds ending in -ess, which he seems to have considered neologisms (even though poetess has been in English since 1530). He had a number of other objections, none of them very concretely grounded, and thought we were in danger of being swamped with -ess coinages. Ayres 1881 quoted Gould with approbation and Bierce 1909 thought poetess "a foolish word." Richard Grant White 1870, on the other hand, found nothing especially objectionable about such words and considered the objections to be based on personal taste alone. There is evidence that women have sometimes found the word objectionable. The OED has a 1748 citation from a Lady Luxborough, who calls poetess "a reproachful name," and in 1976 the scholar and teacher Helen Bevington was quoted in the Saturday Review as calling it "that mortifying word." • ... the word "poetess," with all its suggestion of tepid and insipid achievement —Marguerite Ogden Wilkinson, New Voices, new ed., rev., 1921 • She is a poet (she hates to be called a poetess) — Time, 17 Jan. 1955 Simon 1980 suggests that poetess got this bad odor from its association with what he calls "female-ghetto poetry." We do find it used pejoratively now and then: • Is there a Parson, much bemus'd in beer, A maudlin Poetess, a rhyming Peer—Alexander Pope, An Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, 1735 • I can't understand why birds like you & Wilson ... think Edna is a poetess. Let alone a poet —Archibald MacLeish, letter, 4 Oct. 1929 But genuine pejorative use does not appear to be frequent. If you want to condemn unmistakably, you can trot out better words: • ... Eliza Cook, the pious Victorian poetastress — Howard 1983 Most of our evidence for poetess is neutral in tone. Some writers and reviewers seem to find it a handy way to identify sex and occupation in a single word: • The story—half truth, half fiction—of a very minor London poetess of the eighteen-twenties —New Yorker, 29 Sept. 1951 • ... bizarre dialogue, in which a would-be poetess and a failed ballet dancer discuss "art" —James Campbell, Time Literary Supp., 22 Aug. 1980 • The slim, shy poetess —John Updike, Bech Is Back, 1982 • Female Poems on Several Occasions by this unidentified poetess appeared in 1679 —James Sutherland, English Literature of the Late Seventeenth Century, 1969 Occasionally we find a writer who assumes that poet designates males only: • Among the poets and poetesses of the period —Donald C. Masters, A Short History of Canada, 1958 But in more cases it is used where there is no question about the sex of the writer: • Marianne Moore is just about the most accomplished poetess alive —Time, 10 Dec. 1951 • We are fortunate that Thomas H. Johnson, the foremost modern authority on the Amherst poetess — publisher's note, Emily Dickinson: Selected Letters, 1986 • Anne Morrow Lindbergh, a poetess, philosopher and novelist —Donald Robinson, Ladies' Home Jour., January 1971 It looks to us as though poetess is still alive, in spite of opinions to the contrary, is still associated with Sappho, and is still found useful for any of several reasons by reviewers and other writers. It is offensive to some women writers, perhaps because of its association with second-rate writing. It seems in intention to be much more often neutral than pejorative. All the same, it does seem to be used at times when poet would work just as well. See -ess. |
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