Adaptation of Literary Works in Susan Howe’s Secret History of the Dividing Line

Abstract

Susan Howe, an American poet-critic, is famous for her creative way of writing. Howe is very much obsessed with the texts of the past, whether literary or historical. Her writings revolve around the texts that are written by master male writers. She adapted certain texts for certain goals she set for herself. Her aim behind making adaptations is not merely to copy these works, but rather to put them in the current context and to question their assumptions. She reappropriated them to uncover the marginalized voices that are shut inside the linguistic structures or in the patriarchal way of writing that is almost egoistic.