“Nothing but myself... my (selves)”: a construção da (homo)sexualidade feminina nos poemas de Adrienne Rich

Abstract

This paper aims to reflect on the different female subjects brought by Adrienne Rich’s poetry. From the selected corpora of the American poet, it is intended to think about the process of construction of the subjectivity and sexuality of these subjects in contemporaneity in opposition to the female figure present in the discourse of hegemonic heteronormativity.Dissociated from the social representations that assume to be the female body in a masculine object and going beyond the notion that the sexual possession of the woman is a factor that maintains the social order, Rich's lyrical self is then the subject formed by the difference, not only by its kind, but by its class, language and cultural representations. Today with a multiplicity of values, senses and representations, a centralized and static female subject it is replaced for a contradictory, dynamic and fragmented figure, a subject that it is the result of different experiences. In this perspective, it is understood that Rich’s poetry discusses a space of reflection on the hegemonic discourse and social practices guided by Western culture. Thus, we try to articulate a speech by authors such as Simone de Beauvoir and Teresa de Lauretis with Rich's poems, showing that with a growing discussion of such a construction promotes, not only a new perception of the world, but a change of references and criteriaon the evaluation of social phenomena.