Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

In "As the Shield Goddess, Mycenae", Charles Olson delves into the raw, potent essence of femininity and ancient power, aligning womanhood with primal, destructive energy. The poem conjures the archetype of the shield-bearing goddess of Mycenaean culture—an image that merges feminine strength and the threat of chaos. Olson’s meditation on this goddess serves as a counterpoint to contemporary depictions of women, critiquing the ways modern society minimizes or distorts female power.

Olson introduces the shield goddess with a sense of mystique and latent danger, describing her as "a faceless thing behind which beats a clock like a bomb." This image blends the timeless with the imminent, suggesting that feminine power is an explosive force capable of “blowing the world apart.” By presenting this force as hidden behind a "faceless" exterior, Olson implies that true feminine power is often obscured or misunderstood by society. The ticking bomb and clock metaphors evoke both the steady beat of life and the potential for sudden, uncontrollable disruption, encapsulating the contradictory nature of womanhood as both life-giving and, in its repressed fury, potentially destructive.

This notion of an “atomic furnace” within women challenges the prevailing depictions of femininity in mid-20th-century American culture. Olson criticizes contemporary portrayals of women as demure, trivialized figures “in peddle-pushers and slippers,” detached from the visceral power that resides within them. These “cute” images, he suggests, conceal the primal energy that drives and defines femininity—an energy akin to the “i00-blossom thing” of fertility, sexuality, and innate strength. Olson’s call to “let the woman known as Baby Doll come on” signals his frustration with a society that trivializes women’s power, reducing them to mere objects of entertainment rather than acknowledging the complexity and depth of their influence.

The figure of "Baby Doll" becomes a symbol for Olson’s critique of how society consumes and distorts female sexuality. In his description, she is both powerful and constrained, a performer “thrown from birth alone to entertain the boys.” The image of her breasts, "twin-breasted mountains," captures both their allure and their monumental, almost intimidating presence. Olson emphasizes her control over her own body, as she “squeezes” and “manipulates” her breasts, a display both assertive and performative. Her self-presentation is bold and unapologetic, embodying a force that Olson views as underappreciated and misconstrued by those who witness it. The poem suggests a tension between the woman’s agency over her own body and her role as an object for male pleasure, highlighting society’s tendency to commodify female sexuality.

In framing her as the “Mycenaean shoved up against the beasts,” Olson draws on the mythic and historical associations of the Mycenaean culture, known for its warrior goddesses and powerful female deities. This reference aligns the “Baby Doll” figure with ancient myths, suggesting that contemporary women are the inheritors of a much older, fiercer lineage. The beasts beside her, “pawing the air,” evoke both the challenges she must contend with and the primal nature of the forces she embodies. Olson's language implies a sense of struggle and domination, as if the woman must continuously wrestle with these “beasts”—symbolic of societal expectations, desires, and perhaps the darker aspects of her own nature. Her struggle becomes a display of her resilience and her capacity to command these forces, even as they threaten to overwhelm her.

The poem’s language is deliberately provocative, especially in its references to the woman’s “legs” and “dusted twat.” Olson’s use of crude, explicit terms is a conscious rejection of the sanitized, polite representations of femininity that he critiques. This choice underscores his belief that female power is messy, earthy, and tied to the physical body in ways that society often seeks to obscure or control. Olson’s gritty, confrontational language forces the reader to confront the rawness of this power, rejecting any comfortable, idealized notions of womanhood in favor of a more visceral reality. This language choice reflects Olson’s aim to reconnect femininity with its primal origins, unfiltered and unsoftened.

Ultimately, "As the Shield Goddess, Mycenae" presents femininity as a force as ancient and formidable as the goddesses of Mycenaean culture. Olson’s depiction of womanhood rejects conventional ideals of beauty and decorum, favoring instead an image of powerful, elemental energy that both creates and destroys. The poem challenges readers to acknowledge the fullness of this energy, suggesting that to deny or diminish it is to risk allowing it to erupt in unpredictable, perhaps destructive ways. In portraying femininity as an “atomic furnace” hidden beneath societal expectations, Olson calls for a reimagining of women’s roles—one that recognizes and respects the vast, sometimes terrifying power they hold within.

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