Shattering the Pristine Mirror | From Turgenev’s Maiden to Sexton’s Madwoman ❤️

Why did Anne Sexton Shatter Turgenev’s Mirror?

First, a little disclaimer before we begin,

Then onto the post and the musings within! 😊

Turgenev’s Maiden and Sexton’s Madwoman

9th November

#onhisbirthdaytoday #onherbirthdaytoday

The Disclaimer: The views, literary analogies, and theoretical allusions expressed in this post are purely literary musings painted on ‘imaginative habitations’, and hence they are not meant to be taken in strict letter and in spirit! This is a special public service announcement for my II MA students especially - please do not cite my midnight epiphanies of this kind, verbatim in your Critical Theory exam the day after tomorrow and expect grace marks! 😊 As such, consider this space as a purely imaginative habitation for an open discussion, and not a legally binding syllabus or a substitute for reading your actual prescribed texts. Read, reflect, and yes… be courageous enough to shatter your own mirrors!

Now onto the Post and the Musings –

Well, two great literary legends were born today.

Ivan Turgenev in Russia and Anne Sexton in America.

Ivan Turgenev could be called the first internationally celebrated Russian writer who got widespread fame and critical acclaim all across the world in general, and Western Europe in particular.

And that’s also because, (like Pearl S Buck or Doris Lessing, or Jawaharlal Nehru, or M. K. Gandhi or R. K. Narayan) he lived much of his adult life abroad – especially in Germany and in France – and hence served as a cultural mediator between Russia and the West.

He is particularly known for defining the concept of the ‘superfluous man’ in Russian literature.

[On an aside, it was Alexander Pushkin, who in his “novel in verse” titled, Eugene Onegin, envisioned such a character (the superfluous man)! A character who was a highly cynical, highly educated aristocrat - highly bored with society, highly detached, and highly incapable of engaging in meaningful work or relationships with anyone!]

Althought Pushkin envisioned such a character, he never actually used the exact phrase “superfluous man” anywhere in the book. It was Ivan Turgenev who officially coined the label decades later in his 1850 novella, The Diary of a Superfluous Man.

He had expanded this archetype (of the Superfluous Man) from an aristocratic, romantic, cynical wanderer into a tragic reflection of the 1840s Russian intelligentsia!

So who is the Russian Intelligentsia?

Well, the Russian intelligentsia can be defined in simple terms, by contrasting them with the aristocrats.

The aristocracy, the autocracy and the bureaucracy had all the money, the land, and the political control with them. However, the Russian intelligentsia, had the education but zero power. In other words, they were armed with highly progressive university education but unfortunately they were completely locked out of political power by the Tsarist autocracy. This profound alienation resulted in radicalism, despair, and the “Superfluous Man” syndrome of the era.

In short, the Superfluous Men were Russian intelligentsia who were paralysed by over-education and were entirely incapable of turning their progressive education into real, concrete action.

Quite interestingly, Turgenev also pioneered yet another engaging archetype in Russian literature - the intellectually independent, morally pure, and resolute young woman, dubbed the Turgenev maiden!

And that’s were this blogpost really starts! 😊

This can be seen in his characterisation of Elena in his 1859 novel titled, On the Eve or Anna Odintsova in his 1862 novel titled, Fathers and Sons that depict women who possess a quiet, unyielding strength - a strength that consistently eclipses the indecisive, philosophising men all around them.

In a way… yes… in a way… the Turgenev Maiden is unique in the realm of 19th century literature, because, it was a time when much of European literature was busy depicting their female leads or heroines as women waiting to be saved by brave and dynamic men. Hence, the Turgenev Maiden, conceptualised by Turgenev was a welcome relief from the ‘stereotypical’ portrayal of the century.

This brings us to Anne Sexton, the birthday girl today - and her poetic personas – especially the “Mad Housewife” and the “Witch” archetype!

Well, Sexton’s “Mad Housewife” was quite an explosive contribution to the mid 20th century’s literary (and feminist) perspectives on what Spivak would call, coercive gender stereotypes!

In fact, Sexton did a stunning, path-breaking manoeuvre of sorts! She turned the ‘safety’ and ‘domesticity’ of the home into a site of psychological trauma. Be it the kitchen, the ironing board, or the marital bed – they were all conceptualised as spaces of suffocation and trauma.

In addition, she was bold enough (for her time!) to embrace the “Witch” archetype, as she strongly felt that, the concept of ‘Witch’ has historically been a patriarchal archetype - a label used to police, to silence, and to execute women who stepped outside acceptable (patriarchal) bounds.

For example, in her poem titled, “Her Kind”, her speaker does not defend herself against the accusation of being a witch; she boldly embraces it. She identifies with the outcast, the possessed, and the misunderstood (“I have been her kind”).

Her Kind

By Anne Sexton

I have gone out, a possessed witch,

haunting the black air, braver at night;

dreaming evil, I have done my hitch

over the plain houses, light by light:

lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.

A woman like that is not a woman, quite.

I have been her kind.

In this poem, the refrain “I have been her kind” is a radical and bold act of claiming the identity of the outcast (witch) as a badge of honour and a source of camaraderie and kinship with other women. (I have been her kind!)

Thus far, we had a look into Turgenev’s depiction of his maidens, and Sexton’s portrayal of her women as well.

Now, let’s bring Susan Sellers into the picture! 😊

A Russian writer (Turgenev), and an American writer (Sexton) lend themselves to critical interpretation by a British feminist (Susan Sellers), who waxes eloquent on French feminism (Cixous)! 😊

But before we proceed, a word about Susan Sellers would do a whole world of good here.

I know that my II MA Students are going to write their End-of-Semester Examination on the paper titled, ‘Critical Theory’, in two days, wherein Susan Sellers finds a space as well! 😊

Interestingly, Susan Sellers was someone (akin to Ivan Turgenev), who acted as a cultural mediator between France and Britain and of course the rest-of-the-literary-world!

Professor Susan Sellers – while doing her Masters in Sorbonne in Paris, focusing on Literary Theory and Feminist Thought, got the opportunity to work directly with a lot of pioneering French feminist philosophers, especially with Hélène Cixous, with whom she formed a long-lasting friendship.

The “comparativa” “impy” nymph in me indeed tempts me to a tee, trying to make another startling analogy –

Sellers is to Cixous what Spivak is to Derrida! 😊

The comparisons are so striking, aren’t they?

Bespeaks to the power of good translators who envision their noble role in making the aura of a foreign country’s theories appealing and convincing to their own people!

Here, again, the translator becomes a cultural mediator of sorts!

Interestingly, both Spivak and Sellers were not passive translators but “massive” translators!

When Spivak translated Derrida’s Of Grammatology into English in 1976, she was able to make a highly dense and intense text very easily understandable for English-speaking scholars. Sellers did the exact same thing for Hélène Cixous in the late 1980s!

In fact, translating Cixous into English was a great challenge for Sellers. It was “an exceptionally difficult academic undertaking”, as she herself admits, to translate Cixous’s concept of écriture féminine (writing the body)!

Yes, “Writing the Body!”

The concept of “Writing the Body” was something quite exciting to Sellers. She felt that, this concept indeed provided the perfect and exact theoretical vocabulary needed to analyse “how women write”, and how women “create” art and literature.

And that’s exactly the point I’m trying to make through this blogpost.

So yes! there is indeed a sharp and a stark contrast between Turgenev’s “idealised maiden” and Sexton’s “transgressive housewife!”

Ain’t it?

Well, and this, according to Susan Sellers, is tied to their respective genders! (Bring in Judith Butler, or even Beauvoir here, if you may!)

Sellers has always been a staunch supporter of women “writing”, nay “creating” their own literary language!

And why-o-why does she support that?

That’s because she argues that male-authored texts have always historically “trapped” women into highly coercive gender stereotypes, and constructs, to serve their own psychological or selfish needs.

In that sense, Turgenev’s maiden, (despite her moral superiority), is indeed, a classic patriarchal myth - the “selfless” saviour. Moreover, she is permitted to be strong only because she remains pure, self-sacrificing, and ultimately non-threatening to the patriarchal order. As such, she is the object of male ‘portrayals’ and NOT the subject of her own lived reality or embodied subjectivity!

To Susan Sellers, the concept of “good” or “strong” women are almost always visualised and conceptualised only within male-demarcated frameworks!

That’s hence Sellers advocates the concept of écriture feminine – “writing the female body” from the woman’s felt-experience and embodied subjectivity, in order to disrupt male-dominated language and reclaim female agency.

Turgenev creates female characters who are aesthetically balanced and visually spotless, reflecting a male gaze. However, Sexton’s personas are born from first-hand visceral, bodily reality – the reality of menstruation, abortion, psychiatric wards, and domestic exhaustion.

If Turgenev gave narrative agency to his ‘maiden’, Sexton reclaims female agency for her ‘witches’ and ‘madwomen’.

To put it in a nutshell –

Turgenev spends the entire 19th century polishing a pristine “mirror” (reminded of Sylvia Plath?) that “reflects” authentic ‘female experience’, and then Sexton comes and claims that she wants the ‘pristine mirror’ destroyed completely, in order to reclaim true female agency! 😊

Now for a few lovely quotes from Anne Sexton to wrap up this blogpost, quotes I thought you’d so love reading – 😊

“As it has been said:

Love and a cough

cannot be concealed.

Even a small cough.

Even a small love.”

“It doesn't matter who my father was; it matters who I remember he was.”

“The joy that isn't shared dies young.”

“Don't bite till you know if it's bread or stone.”

“God owns heaven but He craves the earth.”

“I don’t care, I love you anyhow. It is too late to turn you out of my heart. Part of you lives here.”

“How you choose to lose yourself matters. Trust me, it’s all in the ‘how’. It matters a lot.”

“Now he is gone… But he belongs to me like lost baggage.”