| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立高雄師範大學 === 國文學系 === 107 === After the abolition of Martial Law, Taiwan’s economy boomed, government policy changed its direction, and female autonomy has increased; with the influx of various Western ideological trends, female consciousness emerges in poetry. Feminism brings along the awakening of sexual autonomy. Instead of conforming to the stereotype of composing sentimental, soft, and tender works, female poets transcend the restraint imposed by social conventions, embarking on the self-exploring journey, and develop self-awareness.
These female poets start the changing process from sexual-depression to sensual writing and then to gender liberation; human bodies are utilized in their works to express their significant ideas, to liberate themselves, and to speak out for women’s rights. Their writings do not just focus on their own lives, but provide a wider reflection on human bodies, power, politics, and gender identity.
This essay mainly examines the works of two brilliant female poets active in poetry after the abolition of Martial Law, Ling Yu and Ai-Lin Yan. Although from different generations, they share the same trait of focusing their writings on their own selves. What distinguishes them is that they write about human bodies in different styles. Yan’s poetry has characteristics of being blunt and edgy, while Ling Yu’s poems show more ambiguity and obscurity. Yan makes every effort to liberate bodies and sexuality in her works to prove her self-existence. In contrast, Ling Yu commented that her own writings do not contain much female consciousness. As we can see, Ling Yu deliberately blurs gender differences in her poems; is it a silent protest as well as the leakage of her subconsciousness?
This essay will cover from the contemporary social background to the two poets, examining the process of them liberating themselves as well as the similarities and differences of their writing styles.
Chapter 2, “The Emergence of Body Writing,” looks into how female poets in Taiwan are influenced by feminism thoughts after the abolition of Martial Law. Feminism movement shakes the world of poetry, making female poets shift their writing focus back to themselves, and frees them from writing the stereotypical subject matters for female writers.
Chapter 3, “Categories of Body Writing,” analyzes how female poets write about sexual autonomy. Three writing categories, “Masculine Other,” “Androgyny,” and “Feminine Self,” are deployed in this chapter to review the poets’ subject matters, to observe the reflection of their internal mind, to scrutinize the depictions on the images of sexual organs, and to probe into the process from their resisting for the sake of resistance, which is just a camouflage, to their identification and appreciation of their own gender.
Chapter 4, “The Liberation of Body Writing,” studies the changes that female poets undertake, from accepting self-existence passively to seeking self-validation actively. In the stages from sexual-depression to sexual-liberation, their sexuality is awakened, liberated, and recognized; their disapprovals toward the social surroundings are voiced.
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