Intertextuality in Diane di Prima’s Loba: Religious Discourse and Feminism

Abstract

The last three decades have witnessed a significant increase in the academic interest in the Beat Generation. No longer seen as “know-nothing bohemians” (Podhoretz 1958), scholars have extended the scope of Beat studies, either by generating renewed interest in canonical authors, by expanding the understanding of what Beat means, or by broadening the aesthetic or theoretical lens through which we read Beat writers and poets. Among these, the transnational perspective on Beat writing has sparked careful re-examinations of Beat authors and their works that seek to recognize, among other things, the impact that transnational cultures and literatures have had on Beat writers. Diane di Prima’s long poem Loba (Di Prima 1998), a feminist epic the poet started writing in the early 1970s, draws on a vast array of transnational texts and influences. Most notoriously, di Prima works with mythological and religious texts to revise and challenge the representation of women throughout history. This paper explores di Prima’s particular use of world narratives in light of a feminist poetics and politics of revision. Through the example of “Eve” and the “Virgin Mary”, two of the many female characters whose textual representation is challenged in Loba, the first part of the paper considers di Prima’s use of gnostic and Christian discourses and their impact on her feminist politics of revision. The second part of the paper situates Loba in the specific context of Second-Wave feminism and the rise of Goddess Movement feminist groups. Drawing from the previous analysis, this part reevaluates di Prima’s collection in light of the essentialist debate that analyzes the texts arising from this tradition as naïve and apolitical.

Intermedia poetics in and out of Detroit’s Alternative Press

“…As Estíbaliz Encarnación-Pinedo writes about di Prima's long poem Loba, these tendencies include prominent intertextual references and, specifically, those that forward a "revision of female power in religious texts." 33 Di Prima notes in the letter alongside her submissions that "PROUD TO BE A SCARLET WOMAN" was "inspired by a bumpersticker that actually said 'Proud to be a Methodist Minister.'" 34 As such, the intertextuality at work in "PROUD TO BE A SCARLET WOMAN" shares much in common with other tendencies in di Prima's work, that, like Encarnación-Pinedo suggests, propose an "opposition to more rigid patriarchal religious narratives."…”

“…34 As such, the intertextuality at work in "PROUD TO BE A SCARLET WOMAN" shares much in common with other tendencies in di Prima's work, that, like Encarnación-Pinedo suggests, propose an "opposition to more rigid patriarchal religious narratives." 35 But where Loba makes references to biblical mythology, di Prima's bumper sticker poem offers a revision of a very different kind of source text, though retaining an opposition to patriarchal expressions of religiosity. With a nod to Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter, Di Prima's poetic response sticker calls attention to women's-and women's sexuality's-biblical associations with sin and evil.…”