Date of Award

Spring 5-15-2026

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

MA English

Department

English

Advisor

John Wargacki, PhD.

Advisor

Mary Balkun, PhD.

Keywords

feminism, religion, Christian Science, Calvinism, poetry, patriarchy

Abstract

Poet Emily Dickinson and Modernist poet Mina Loy’s works stand the test of time to create a striking religious and feminist narrative today. Dickinson’s poetry, which remained largely unknown in her lifetime, will come to wield great power in the feminist and religious spheres in the years following her death in 1886. Following in Dickinson’s footsteps, Loy’s poetry is direct and engaging in a more urgent message with her bold imagery and brash words. Dickinson’s “We talked as Girls do” (392) and “They shut me up in Prose” (445) are texts that subtly challenge the misogyny in the Calvinist religion she was taught as a girl. Conversely, Loy’s “Lunar Baedeker” and “Brancusi’s Golden Bird,” which were published in her lifetime but have not stood the test of time nearly as well as Dickinson’s poetry, boldly addresses gender equality and feminism within the Christian Church after having been raised Evangelical. My thesis will acknowledge how Dickinson’s and Loy’s different types of poetry still have similar themes due to their strict religious childhoods despite having vastly different writing styles. Through the use of theorists like Simone de Beauvoir and biographers like Cynthia Griffin Wolff, this thesis will explore what defines Dickinson’s and Loy’s religious and feminist sensibilities. This thesis will argue that while both women took different approaches to feminism in the context of their religious upbringing and respective times, both made unique and comparable contributions as feminist poets that remain influential to the present-day conversation regarding gender equality.

Download

Share

COinS