Imagining Incest examines daughter-father relations as depicted in the poetry of Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, Adrienne Rich, and Sharon Olds. Swiontkowski demonstrates a progression in these relations from daughter as victim of the father in Sexton and Plath to daughter as rebel against the father in Rich to daughter as successor to the father in Olds. Each poet utilizes the poetic motif of incest in varying degrees to convey this developing relationship, and Swiontkowski shows that the struggles and triumphs inherent in this imagined relationship parallel many of the issues raised in the recent social crisis of recovered memories. Imagining Incest thus casts light on a painful social issue and extends the hope that comparing these four women poets demonstrates that women who have suffered under the tyranny of a patri-archal system can rebel and overcome by confronting and redefining the incestuous nature of their relations with the fathers of society.

In her introduction, Swiontkowski first clarifies the intentionally fictive nature of the incest motif. These four poets are not writing of actual incest with real fathers. Rather, they are using images of incest, or imagining incest, as a means of depicting the psycho-social relations of the daughters and fathers of society-the harm to women inherent in such relations and the means of redefining those relations and overcoming the harm. It is no coincidence that the earliest of these poets, Sexton and Plath, adopted this poetic motif in the wake of the influential theories of Freud and Jung, and it is also no coincidence that those theories differed centrally on the question of incest. Swiontkowski examines what Freud and Jung had to say on this topic, as well as the theories of other influential thinkers, such as Lévi-Strauss, Durkheim, and Lacan. The climate of male considerations of incest that these men established certainly influenced the writings of Sexton, Plath, Rich, and Olds. Feminist responses that arose during the careers of these poets, and in which Rich and Olds are in part participating, are also examined.

An additional thrust of Imagining Incest is to illuminate the social history of daughter-father relations that these four poets draw on. Con-sequently, the chapter on Sexton and Plath draws on the ancient tale of Electra (which Freud and Jung refer to as well) in order to show the victimized position of the daughter caught in an unquestioning alliance with a harmful father. Likewise, the rebellious stance of Adrienne Rich is highlighted by reference to the Greek poet Sappho. And Sharon Olds's sometimes biblical treatment of her father is augmented by a consideration of the apocryphal tale of Sophia-once the sub-ordinate daughter/spouse of God, today cele-brated as a goddess in her own right. What has happened to the daughter Sophia over time is emblematic of the initial subjection, then tran-scendence over victimage that these four poets unveil in their poems.