Opening the Box of Suffering, Unleashing the Evils of the World’: Pandora and her Representation in Nineteenth-Century American Poetry
Zaid Ibrahim Ismael
Al-Mansour University College
Sabah Atallah Khalifa Ali
College of Education- Ibn Rushd/ Baghdad University
DOI: https://doi.org/10.25130/jls.3.4.18
Keywords: Pandora Box Greek myth feminism misogyny patriarchy
Abstract
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.
