The transformation of silence into language : the modes of polyphony in Audre Lorde’s the black unicorn

الملخص EN

Audre Lorde (1934-1992) stands out as a challengingly controversial Afro-American feminist lesbian poet and socio-political activist who has been for long credited and highlighted for the ideological aspect of her poetry rather than its artistic value.

She obviously figures, however, as a good model for the post-structuralist Third Wave Feminism in its diversity and multivocality.

Her literary approach as informed by her socio-political and cultural contexts is mainly anchored in the polemics of race, class, and the various sex relations and the different, and sometimes opposed, value judgments attached to them.

The objective of the current study is mainly to cast new lights on and assess a significant artistic aspect of her poetry in its operation within the context of recent developments in literary theory and cultural studies.

Polyphony thrusts itself, in this connection, as an instrumental weapon for an artist engaged in an incessant presentation of the conflicting dialogue between a constellation of vulnerable minority voices and the Western phallo-centric heterosexual tradition.

M.

Bakhtin‟s concept of polyphony projected itself as a theoretical framework within which Lorde‟s polyphonic inclination works.

The study focused on her oft-cited volume The Black Unicorn in which main voices are recurrently heard, or overheard.

In a highly Bakhtinian sense, the black, the feminist, and the lesbian/erotic voices push forward in a variety of ways as discourses of secondary culture(s) worthy of scrutiny concerning their struggle against, or contiguity with, the centrally hegemonic discourse.

The study reaches a number of findings and observations concerning Lorde‟s convergence on or divergence from the other practitioners of similar interests and sympathies.

Her presentation of the erotic in her poetry as differently from the manner of representation in her prose writings is significantly alluded to.

The study rounds up with the recommendation that the working of ideology into artistry in Lorde‟s poetic world be deliberately considered for the attainment of a proper assessment of her as a poet.