Imagining Incest

"Imagining Incest examines daughter-father relations as depicted in the poetry of Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, Adrienne Rich, and Sharon Olds. Swiontkowski demonstrates a progression in these relations from daughter as victim of the father in Sexton and Plath to daughter as rebel against the father in Rich to daughter as successor to the father in Olds. Each poet utilizes the poetic motif of incest in varying degrees to convey this developing relationship, and Swiontkowski shows that the struggles and triumphs inherent in this imagined relationship parallel many of the issues raised in the…