Narrativisation of identity in the poetry as life writing of Lithuanian women émigrés
ENThis chapter discusses narrativisation of identity in the poetry of selected Lithuanian women émigré writers in regard to the current critical debate on intersections between life writing and poetry. Narrativisation is discussed as engagement with narrativity to textualise the realignment of identity in response to the poets’ experience as World War ii refugees and then as immigrants to the United States. It is argued that their poetry was written as a response to exile, and in terms of generic identification departs from traditional definition of autobiography both in form and content. Generic indefiniteness is presented as a typical feature of writing by exiles. Exploring how the émigré poets narrativise their experience as exiles at the intersection between poetry and autobiography, the role of narrative as a means of ordering experience is discussed. This involves engagement with narratives of culture and interpretation of cultural scripts, by reflecting on cultural, historical and rhetorical contexts that shaped the autobiographical subjects’ identity as exiles. This study challenges the depreciation of the personal in women’s poetry and its relegation to secondary status, by arguing that non-canonical approaches to poetry and autobiography allow uncovering subjectivities overshadowed by culturally representative models of autobiography and poetry. The analysis is situated within the framework of the postmodern approaches to narrative, language, subjectivity and identity. Keywords: narrativisation, Lithuania, identity, subjectivity, poetry, émigré.
