The Enemy Self

by Barbara Adams

Published 1 March 1991
Modernist poet Laura Riding was impelled to create a perfect poetic self, free from the flaws of her actual self. Adams discusses in detail Riding's profound poetics and her compelling autobiographical poetry, and, tracing the life of Riding through several transformations and name changes, shows the connection between her life and her work. Adams shows how Riding developed autobiography in the lyric poem, and how she transformed it towards narrative, leading directly to `Confessional' poetry; she also discusses Riding's contribution to `New Criticism'.