Contested Feminisms in Soviet, Post-Soviet and Contemporary Russian Translations of Emily Dickinson and Sylvia Plath, 1976-2010

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My project examines how women's poetry written in one language and cultural context can travel,via translation, across linguistic, cultural and social boundaries, and speak to audiences in another. Iexplore this question through the case study of the poems of Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) andSylvia Plath (1932-1963), two American poets who were translated into Russian in the Soviet andpost-Soviet contexts. Following Godayol, I explore how gender is 'de-codified' and 're-codified' intranslation, and how ideas about gender travel transnationally through translation. Such de/recodification is particularly marked in the case of Dickinson and Plath, two Anglo-American poetsstrongly associated with feminism, but of very different stripes. While Dickinson's self-isolationallowed her to escape the confines facing women at the time, Plath was explicitly feminist, usingher poetry to express her frustration with men and gender norms. A century divided Dickinson fromPlath, yet Dickinson gained fame only posthumously, meaning that the unlikely duo gainedpopularity contemporaneously, in the 1960s, when second-wave feminism was emerging. Thesepoets arrived even later to Russia, a society with a radically different gender history. My projectasks how Dickinson and Plath speak, mediated by their translators, to the Soviet and Russianexperience and its gender norms.