Opening the box of suffering, unleashing the evils of the world : Pandora and her representation in nineteenth-century American poetry

Abstract EN

Nineteenth-Century American writers endeavored to establish a distinct literary tradition away from the dominant European canon, particularly after the War of Independence.

They found in their new environment and local color a source of inspiration.

Still, they also drew on Greek myths to comment on social issues and to frame their works within these legendary realities that are noted for their universality and aesthetic nature.

For instance, rewriting and allusions to the myth of Pandora and her box can be found in the poems composed by both male and female American poets of the time.

This research deals with the use of this myth in selected poems by Nineteenth-Century American poets, namely Emily Dickinson's “Hope Is the Thing with Feathers”, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's “The Masque of Pandora”, Samuel Phelps Leland's “Pandora's Box”, and Harriet Jane Hanson Robinson's The New Pandora.

It aims at investigating the difference in the use of this sexist myth in the writings of these male and female poets.