Abstract:

This article investigates early American women's acrostic poetry, especially as it was written and exchanged in same-sex friendships and romantic relationships. It begins with a discussion of male poets' deployment of the print acrostic in the service of courtship, considering how such poems expose women to the public eye. Women's manuscript acrostics, on the other hand, refuse the isolation of the female subject in the heterosexual pair, instead creating community in their composition and circulation practices. By way of example, the article turns to acrostic poetry written and received by Charity Bryant, a young teacher from New England whose affections for other women prompted the exchange of manuscript acrostics that fit same-sex love into the larger framework of gendered respectability and morality. Taken together, these poems demonstrate the adaptation of women's manuscript practices to relationships that included but went well beyond the rhetoric of romantic friendship. In this exchange, the article argues, acrostics normalize same-sex relationships, making them legible and preserving them for posterity.

摘要：

本文研究了早期美国女性的离合诗，特别是在同性友谊和浪漫关系中创作和交流的离合诗。首先讨论了男性诗人如何运用印刷体离合诗来求爱，并考虑到这些诗歌如何将女性暴露在公众面前。另一方面，女性手稿的离合诗拒绝异性恋中女性主体的孤立，而是在其创作和流通实践中创造社区。举例来说，本文转向了查丽蒂·布莱恩特 (Charity Bryant) 创作和接受的离合诗，她是一位来自新英格兰的年轻教师，她对其他女性的感情促使了离合诗手稿的交换，这些诗将同性之爱融入到性别尊严和道德的更大框架中。综合起来，这些诗歌展示了女性手稿实践对关系的适应，其中包括但远远超出了浪漫友谊的修辞。文章认为，在这次交流中，离合诗使同性关系正常化，使它们清晰易读，并为后代保留它们。