is expressed very clearly, very realistically but also very vividly. They live and exist in a rural space so they seem to have within themselves very simple, pure, and rustic beauty. First of all, they are country girls, water-slapping girls, village girls, simple, rustic boys... Each person does different jobs but they all have a charming, sincere, and genuine look. In that pure space, love is also very sincere and simple but also full of sweetness: The groom is shy, hesitantly walking slowly / The rustling of the trousers has not yet faded / The bride's red brown dress tilts her hat to soak / Her rosy cheeks shed tears of longing for her home" (The Wedding).
In general, the feminist consciousness in female poetry during the New Poetry movement was somewhat gentler than that of female poets in the Middle Ages. Although people still existed in a society full of contradictions, with the characteristics of romanticism, the artists did not advocate opposing circumstances like later revolutionary realist literature. Alone in life, they only knew how to seek love as a support, a salvation. But even though they lived a lot with love, dreamed a lot with love, they were still unlucky. However, their hearts were still loyal, a loyalty that could only be found in Eastern women "The green wharf, the green still looks forward to the days" ( The boat goes , Van Dai). However, besides the bleak despair, female poetry compositions during this period also brought to the poetry world bright strokes felt from the feminine ego. The rustic scenes and pure countryside love perceived from the perspective of Anh Tho and Hang Phuong are like a cool source that dispels the gloom and sentimentality that are one of the main aesthetic emotions in romantic poetry.
In short, feminist consciousness in women's poetry during the New Poetry period only stopped at the proactive expression of women's feelings during the period of awakening the individual ego.
Thus, in the first decades of the 20th century, feminist consciousness in women's poetry was still inherited from the tradition of medieval women's literature. Although there were periods when feminist consciousness was mentioned directly, and there were periods when it was withdrawn into a gender perspective, the thoughts about the times and the feelings about the world through the couple were still very strong.
The clear eyes of women are still important contributions of female poets to the process of demanding equal rights for women and the development of national literature.
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2.3 . FEMINIST CONSCIOUSNESS IN WOMEN'S POETRY FROM 1945 TO 1975
There have been many opinions that Vietnamese literature during the two resistance wars against French colonialism and American imperialism did not contain feminist consciousness. The reason is that after the August Revolution, we implemented gender equality and it was concretized in the Party's platform and policies and later the 1946 Constitution. However, in our opinion, Vietnamese literature during the 30 years of war still contained feminist consciousness. That is, women in this period continued to inherit the "masculinization" tendency of women in the previous period but in a new context. That was the period when women became soldiers in the revolutionary army standing up to fight off the invaders. War now is not a matter of men or of any individual. Because it is a war in the name of justice, love for the homeland and the desire for peace, independence and freedom.
2.3.1. Women with an engaging attitude
Faced with the urgent task of the community, Vietnamese women stood side by side with men throughout the two wars. The temporary gender boundaries were blurred, including both social and natural boundaries. War pulled women out of the natural environment of everyday life. Together, striving towards a common goal, civic consciousness placed above individual consciousness, mobilizing the maximum will like men, women accepted a literature that imitated, and perhaps not only imitated men but also imitated the voice, thoughts, and emotions of an entire community to fulfill the duty of a citizen when the country was in danger. The success of the August Revolution changed the characteristics of literature with new aesthetic concepts. This important historical event created a transformation in the creative careers of many artists. They enthusiastically joined the fighting life, " going from the valley of sorrow to the field of joy " (poetic idea of Che
Lan Vien). Poetry is no longer a closed world of personal feelings but has become a “battlefront” and “artists are also soldiers on that front” (President Ho Chi Minh’s opinion in a letter to the art exhibition in 1951). Along with male poets, many female writers also joined the two sacred resistance wars of the nation, which is shown through the attitude of participation of lyrical characters.
First of all, we must mention the process of participation of female poets in the pre-war period. Women now appear in the role of citizens with many different positions in society. That is the woman who diligently sews each needle and thread to sew the guard shirt: " I send this shirt to the front / Who wears the shirt knows / Tonight the wind is cold in the empty house / Lacking a shirt but I am not cold " ( The guard shirt , Van Dai). It is clear that the woman who was weak before the revolution has now become stronger than before. The factors that previously evoked cold loneliness have now become powerless before a woman who has found her ideal life. Anh Tho also plays the role of a woman in Vu Lang to reflect the reality of life in a poor countryside but rich in revolutionary tradition. Like many other families in this country, the people of Vu Lang also went to war to protect their homeland: “ Everyone in Vu Lang is the same/ Husbands died in prison, sons far from home/ My village still has women/ With corn fields, with poetry seasons ” ( Tell the story of Vu Lang , Anh Tho). The poetic image is a movement from darkness to light, expressing both the painful reality but also full of faith for a free and happy tomorrow. The image of the Vu Lang woman represents the revolutionary mother, the image of women during the war years.
As a generation that grew up during the war, female poets during the anti-American period also quickly joined the revolutionary flow. Girls in their late teens and early twenties like Xuan Quynh, Lam Thi My Da, Phan Thi Thanh Nhan... also wrote heroic epics about the great national defense. The generation of female poets during this period demonstrated a rich writing ability. We can mention Xuan Quynh with her collections Choi biec, Hoa doc chien trench, Gio Lao cat trang ; Phan Thi Thanh Nhan
with “ Still Fragrance ”; Lam Thi My Da with “ Birth of the Heart ”… Reading female poetry during the anti-American period, we see young women present on all battlefields, from the rear to the fierce fire lines. They lived and attached themselves to the reality of life during the war. Their poetic souls were not unfamiliar with the harshness of war. Xuan Quynh and Lam Thi My Da were poets who were willing to go into the fire line to find inspiration for poetic creation. They were willing to live in bunkers, sleep in bunkers and write poetry amidst the rain of bombs and bullets. Even as Xuan Quynh once shared: “I am willing to devote my whole life/ To the white sand and Lao wind to fan the fire” ( Lao wind, white sand ). And although she was facing the rain of bombs and bullets in the trenches, with the faith of a woman, Xuan Quynh imagined the day of victory, but that imagination was a reminder for people to never forget the fiercest and most beautiful years of their youth: “ But from the bottom of my heart - I still remember / That near and far somewhere there was a road / When the main roads were bombed / It opened in the middle of the deep forest / During the days of fighting the Americans ” ( The story of the road after the years of fighting the Americans ). The difficulties on the march in “ The Lao wind, the white sand ” did not wear down the woman’s strong will: “ Under the bombs and bullets, the Lao wind still blew / And on the sand, there were new sand dunes / The sun grass rolled like wheels / My life was protected by sand / When fighting the enemy, the sand was used as a fortification / The blood of my comrades and my blood was spilled / On this sand, the wind blew just right ” ( The Lao wind, the white sand )...
The woman in Phan Thi Thanh Nhan's poem is also willing to give up everything to go to the fierce battlefield for "only one passionate desire: to open the way". That woman dares to strongly sacrifice her own happiness, even the most sacred things of her private life for the common cause of the nation: "I don't know that tonight is the last time/ Mother is close to me and then will go far away/ At this moment, I lie down and sleep soundly/ Mother is restless listening to the siren outside the station " (Talking to my child before leaving).
It can be seen that female writers did not stand on the sidelines of the war but were willing to go to places considered “hot spots”, living and fighting with the soldiers and civilians on the fierce front lines. Their best poems were born in that context. Besides reflecting the pain and destruction of
During the war, the women affirmed a strong and steadfast perspective on life in the revolutionary era: ready to sacrifice personal feelings to fight for the common cause of the nation, ready to be present on all battlefields from the rear to the front. And a special thing is that beside the verses full of events, worries and concerns, there is always hidden a gentle, feminine beauty.
2.3.2. Women with civic consciousness
The spiritual portrait of women going through the war is highlighted in the choice to voluntarily commit to the war. Women integrate into the community ideal with the role of a citizen, a cell in the great national unity bloc. Women's poetry during the years when the whole country went to war fully embodied the civic consciousness found in the poetry of male poets of the same period.
Love is considered a private matter of both men and women. However, the love of women in this period is also a harmony between personal love and love for the country. The requirement to serve the revolution and encourage fighting does not allow each individual in that community to stand alone. Moreover, from a reflective perspective, the resistance war is so great that it penetrates all the most private aspects of emotions. Poetry is the voice of emotions, so even poems about love, at that time it was still easy to find the shadow of a time of fighting. Love poems of women during the anti-American period were closely linked to the revolutionary mission, meaning that the individual merged into the common: " We have not forgotten the time we were born / All roads carry the pain of bullets and fire / The red road of mud disguised as red / The green road of leaves disguised as green / From this road I write to you " ( Writing on Road 20 , Xuan Quynh). In the years when “the country shares the same soul, the same face”, the nostalgia in the woman’s love also becomes general, similar to a figure, a gait, a look: “ Oh, who is coming? I know you/ Old military uniform, soft hat, high forehead/ How agile is your gait/ Eyes looking far away, proud and proud steps/ Joyfully, I call out in a hurry/ Who would have thought that when I got closer, I was mistaken/ I don’t know how many times a day/ I am absent-minded and laugh to myself: absent-minded/ Clearly you are very far away/ Why do I keep thinking you are close? ” ( Remembering , Phan Thi Thanh Nhan). When people love each other, they are
longing for each other to become comrades, just like To Huu's verse: " Two people kissing, two comrades ". We are not surprised when the girl in Lam Thi My Da's poem is afraid of her lover's compliments and wants "don't praise me" because: " Please show me my shortcomings/ So I can become a good person/ Please show me my bad things/ So I can take care of your life.../ Love is so strict/ Dear, don't praise me " ( Don't praise me )...
Facing death, the woman was not afraid. The image of the woman falling was also described as a journey into the immortal whistle to "transform the shape of the country". With " The sky of bomb craters ", Lam Thi My Da carved into the history of female poetry a tragic monument about the heroic sacrifice of women in the Ho Chi Minh era: " The story goes: You, the girl who opened the road / To save the road that night from injury / So that the convoy could be on time for the battle / You used your love for the Fatherland to light a fire / To distract the enemy and attract the bombs ".
Researcher Nguyen Dang Diep commented: “The poetic aesthetics of the anti-American period is the aesthetics of the heroic and the sublime. The tragic, although mentioned, only has the meaning of a factor to highlight the heroic, making the historical portrait appear more vivid and impressive” [31]. The death of the female youth volunteer is therefore told as a legend. When faced with the cruel choice between life and death, the heroic girl chose the noble sacrifice for the cause of national liberation, for the revolutionary ideal, for the beloved Vietnamese Fatherland. This is the shining beauty of an epic image. The image of the girl opening the way is a full representation of the stature, will and aspiration of the country and people of Vietnam. We understand that sacrifice brings life to many people, many generations, and therefore death becomes the incarnation of the female martyr into the immortal whistle. Lam Thi My Da continued writing: “ Is it true that your soft, white skin/ Has turned into white clouds/ And during the day, the sunny sky/ Passes through your sky/ The sun is restless/ Oh sun or is it your heart in your chest/ Shine on me today to continue my long journey/ The name of the road is the name you left behind/ Your death is the green sky of a girl/ I reflect my heart in your life/ Your face is unknown to my friends/ So each person has their own face …”.
The attitude of participation and civic consciousness in women's poetry originates from the objective requirements of history. Although they had to sacrifice their individuality, the two wars, on the contrary, became the test of gold for women to develop their own strength.
2.4. FEMINIST CONSCIOUSNESS IN WOMEN'S POETRY FROM 1975 TO 1985
Escaping the war, women returned to daily life, the inspiration of praise and epic qualities in literature were gradually replaced by thoughts about world affairs and private life, which were common characteristics of literature in the years before the renovation. Post-war women's poetry was no exception to that rule.
2.4.1. The woman with a lyrical ego carrying personal consciousness
The rise of individual consciousness in post-war female poetry was the first awakening in the emotional life of women after many years of war. Of course, during the war, women were still loved but they did not dare and were not allowed to speak their hearts. The development of love poetry during this period clearly showed the strong rise of individual consciousness of women.
The love of women in times of peace is a private world with many different emotional states interwoven between happiness and suffering, separation and reunion, doubt and deception... Reading Xuan Quynh's poetry, readers can encounter a lyrical, sincere, and feminine ego. In her poetry, the poet always honestly expresses her passions, joys, and sorrows in daily life with a way of feeling and thinking typical of her gender while still leaving a strong personal mark. The feminine beauty in Xuan Quynh's poetry is the affectionate love and thoughtful care for family members such as husband, children, and mother-in-law (Lullaby for you on sleepless nights, Mother of you) . In particular, she devotes many pages of her writing to love with a full range of emotions from impulsive, passionate to intense, profound. Reading her love poems, readers can encounter all the different emotional states of women in love. Sometimes the girl is afraid and skeptical before each love affair ( Hoa co may ); while happy, the woman imagines separation ( Talking with you ), sometimes it is a steadfast affirmation of the girl in love (Tu hat). Just like Xuan Quynh, who is eager to integrate into the depths of the multifaceted levels of love, the poems of Lam Thi My Da, Phan Thi Thanh Nhan, and Y Nhi also hide
contains many desires, contributions, and wishes to accept pain to understand the depths of the world of love: " Aching heart", "Talking to the heart", "Let me lean on you", "I saw you" (Lam Thi My Da) ; "Love", "Alone", "One person", If you come back" (Phan Thi Thanh Nhan) ... It can be seen that the love poems of female poets in this period are sincere expressions of feelings from the depths of women's hearts. They are passionate, youthful voices and full of experiences. Their love is full of emotions such as loyalty, always ready to love wholeheartedly, burn wholeheartedly, and always longing for a complete love.
Not only through the heartbeat, the need for personal awakening is also expressed in the inability to understand the people around, especially the lives of women. Y Nhi tried to concretize this situation with the image of " The woman sitting knitting ": " Not sighing/not smiling/she is keeping her pain/or happiness/her heart is full of faith/or doubt ". The essence of a woman carries within her mystery and complexity, a complexity inherent in the emotional life of humans. Because each person is now a microcosm. It is still an existing entity, but there is a gap between the inner person and the outer person, between consciousness and language that are often not in harmony with each other.
The blossoming of personal life created the premise for the formation of a feminist consciousness with gender colors in female poetry during this period. These are strong personalities, daring to be decisive, speaking frankly and honestly about their thoughts about themselves. Le Thi May lulled herself, lulled her sadness to sleep quietly: " Let sadness sleep peacefully/ Like a yellow-tailed fish after the night of giving birth " ( Sadness ). A woman who was once weak like Xuan Quynh also confidently asserted her role: " I am just a blade of grass under your feet/ An indifferent dust on your shirt/ But if this morning I cannot measure rice/ Surely this afternoon you will not have rice to eat " ( Funny poems about the weaker sex ). Even in the realm of love, women also want to live "truly themselves" completely in this world: " I take back what I have lost too late/ With vibrations, doubts but truly myself " ( Doubt )...